Court Opinion

ID: 9607361
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:57:51.065771+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:36.881671
License: Public Domain

Hall, Judge, dissenting.
The condemned property, near the intersection of Houston and Butler Streets in the City of Atlanta, had a frontage of 68.15 feet on Houston Street and other dimensions of 135.7 feet, 64 feet, and 149 feet; it was improved by an automobile repair garage building. The condemnee testified that he operated a tune-up and brake shop on the property, leased a portion of the building for $200 a month, and rented a limited number of parking spaces from which he received about $40 a month; and that he had been unable to find a comparable location for the business for the price offered by the condemnor. “I would say it is one of the best [locations], it is as close as *522you could get into town. I am only three blocks from the Candler Building, you can leave your car there, park it, have the work done, go to town and come back. It is in walking distance and a location like that is hard to find.” In his opinion the value of the property to him was $45,000, and the market value of the property was $45,000.
A witness for the condemnor, an expert in real estate appraisal, testified: “In appraising this property, I went and examined the property and measured it up and estimated its replacement cost, estimated the value of the land, estimated the rents, estimated what it would be worth as an income property and I estimated what it would be worth to a buyer to buy it to use it and also considered what it would be worth to the present owner, the top value it could be worth to the present owner.” This witness testified that the fair value of the property at the time of condemnation was $26,200—“the depreciated replacement value which would be a value to a user or a value to the present owner . . . as much as a user would be justified in paying for it and in my opinion that is as much as it is worth to the present owner.” And “the figure that I arrived at as an income property was something less than that. . . On account of the nature of that property, a few things peculiar to it, it wouldn’t appeal to too many investors and based on what I estimated it would rent for, I think the highest price that an investor would pay for that property would be around $24,500 based on what I think it would bring in net ... it probably wouldn’t appeal to an investor as much as it would to a user . . . because of the particular situation at that point.” This testimony shows that in the opinion of this witness the market value of the property was $26,200 based on its highest and best use, and not the lower figure which he stated as the value to an investor; his opinion of market value was the same as his opinion of the value to the owner.
Three judges of this court have agreed upon the following concept of unique value to the owner, found in the opinion written by Judge Russell: “Every person who has an established business or even a residence in a location which cannot be duplicated within the immediate area suffers a loss which is particular and *523unique to him and not shared by members of the general public dealing in such property and buying and selling it for profit. Market value is not necessarily just and adequate compensation to them, for market value presupposes not only a buyer willing to purchase but a seller willing to sell. If the property must be duplicated for the business to survive, and if there is no substantially comparable property within the area, then the loss of the forced seller is such that market value does not represent just and adequate compensation to him.”
Following this concept it is difficult to think of a piece of property that would not be in the class for measuring damages by value to the owner rather than by market value. This view is contrary to several principles that have long been established in condemnation cases, which will be discussed infra.
Under constitutional and statutory provisions requiring just and adequate compensation to the owner for the taking of his property, other standards for measuring value than market value could reasonably have been adopted by the courts. But, for example, the courts have, perhaps unnecessarily, declined to allow special damages for losses to the owner such as expenses of moving. State Hwy. Dept. v. Robinson, 103 Ga. App. 12, 15 (118 SE2d 289). The standard of market value has been generally recognized as providing just and adequate compensation, presumably because it provides reasonably reliable evidence of pecuniary value, though it must be established by opinion evidence and is at best difficult to ascertain. Special value to the owner is even more difficult to assess, and the courts have permitted consideration of this measure only in limited cases.
Four Judges of this court, applying the law as we find it, would hold that unless the evidence would authorize a finding that the property had some unique and special value to the condemnee other than, and over and above, fair market value, and that fair market value would not afford just and adequate compensation to the condemnee, the charge complained of was error. Central Ga. Power Co. v. Cornwell, 139 Ga. 1 (76 SE 387, AC 1914A 880); State Hwy. Dept. v. Thomas, 106 Ga. App. 849 (128 SE2d 520); State Hwy. Dept. v. Whitehurst, 106 Ga. App. 532, 534 (127 SE2d 501); State Hwy. Dept. v. Stewart, 104 Ga. App. 178, 183 (121 SE2d 278); State Hwy. Dept. v. Whitehurst, 109 Ga. *524App. 737 (137 E2d 371); State Hwy. Dept. v. Allen, 108 Ga. App. 388 (133 SE2d 64); State Hwy. Dept. v. Weldon, 107 Ga. App. 98 (129 SE2d 396).
The concept of unique value to the owner is that the property has special value for its owner only and no such value for any successor in title. 4 Nichols on Eminent Domain 71, § 12.22 [2]; 18 Am. Jur. 881, 885, §§ 245, 247; 1964 Supp., 138, § 245; accord Fulton County v. Cox, 99 Ga. App. 743, 748 (109 SE2d 849); State Hwy. Dept. v. Thomas, 106 Ga. App. 849, 853, supra. “The existing use to which the owner of the property is devoting it at the time it is taken by eminent domain may, of course, be considered in determining the market value. . . However, before weight is given to peculiar value to the owner, it must appear, not that the property is peculiar, but that the relationship of the owner thereto is peculiar—its advantages to him more or less exclusive—-that is, that it is property having value peculiar to the owner only, and without possible like value to others who might acquire it; property with characteristics of location or construction which limit its usefulness, and therefore, its value, to the particular owner of it, so that these elements of value cannot pass to a third party. The value peculiar to the owner, however, does not encompass sentimental value nor does it justify the allowance of any measures of value by reason of the seller’s unwillingness to part with his title.” 4 Nichols, Eminent Domain 173, § 12.3141. See Orgel, Valuation Under Eminent Domain 322, § 73 et seq.; 29A CJS 697, § 162. The jury is of course authorized to consider the present and potential uses of the property in arriving at market value. Harrison v. Regents of the University System, 105 Ga. App. 817, 819 (125 SE2d 793).
Under the terms of the usual constitutional provision for just compensation, and in the absence of special statutory provisions, it is “well settled that when land occupied for business purposes is taken by eminent domain, the owner or occupant is not entitled to recover compensation for the destruction of his business or the injury thereto by its necessary removal from its established location,” or for “the anticipated profits of his business which áre lost by the taking of the land upon which it is carried on.” 4 Nichols, Eminent Domain 434, 443, 458, §§ 13.3, 13.32; accord Lee v. State Hwy. Dept., 57 Ga. App. 398 (195 SE 462).
*525The evidence in this case does not meet the criterion the courts have heretofore applied when they have permitted unique value to the user to become the measure of compensation in condemnation cases. When the owner of condemned property must acquire comparable property for his business to survive and no substantially comparable property is obtainable within the area, it is not unreasonable to say that the market value of the property does not afford the owner just and adequate compensation for his loss and that some other measure of damages should be devised to compensate him for the taking of his property. But to hold that in such a case damages may be measured by the value of the property to the condemnee would go beyond our previous decisions as to the character of evidence required to authorize this measure of damages rather than market value.
It appears that the charge complained of could have harmed the condemnor and was reversible error. The opinions of the market value of the property given by the several witnesses were $23,000, $26,200, $43,000, $41,500 and $45,000. The jury returned a verdict for $37,250. We must conclude that the jury rejected the opinions of the three witnesses who gave the highest valuations, but must assume that it reached the verdict in one of two ways: (a) by believing that market value would afford just and adequate compensation and arriving at its own opinion of market value between the witnesses’ (market value) valuations of $26,200 and $43,000; or (b) by concluding, considering the court’s charge on unique value, that the property had a unique value to the owner such that the market value would not afford just and adequate compensation and arriving at its opinion of market value based on the lower opinions of the witnesses and increasing this figure to provide for just and adequate compensation based on unique value to the owner.
Unfortunately there is no holding of law in this case sufficient to constitute a binding precedent on anyone as to the proper definition of “unique value.” Until this question is clarified by a decision of our Supreme Court, the law on this subject will remain in great confusion.
I am authorized to state that Bell, P. J., Jordan and Eberhardt, J J., concur in this dissent.