Court Opinion

ID: 9849377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:39:12.561001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:20.972151
License: Public Domain

Cakley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I am constrained to agree with the majority’s ultimate conclusion in Division 1 that, under the circumstances, it is beyond this court’s power to hold that the giving of the contested charge was reversible error. However, I do not believe that the majority goes far enough in emphasizing why the inartful language appearing in State Hwy. Bd. v. Bridges, 60 Ga. App. 240, 241 (2) (3 SE2d 907) (1939) is not proper as a jury instruction as to the determination of the market value of the property actually taken as an element of compensation in a partial taking condemnation action. It is my opinion that the challenged language of Bridges evinces such inherent potential for an erroneous double recovery of consequential damages that, were it within this court’s power to do so, I would propose that it be disapproved as a jury instruction.
The majority correctly notes that, in a partial taking condemnation proceeding, the first element of compensation is the market value of the property actually taken. To arrive at the amount of compensation for the part actually taken, the contested charge instructed the jury to determine the difference between the market value of the “whole lot” immediately before and after the taking of a part thereof. If the market value of the “whole lot immediately after the taking” is deemed to be the market value of the remainder immediately after the taking rather than the market value of the remainder as a part of the whole, it is clear that the amount arrived at by utilizing this method of calculation would result in a figure which already represents the diminution in the market value of the remainder. For example, there was testimony in the instant case that the value of appellee’s entire parcel before the taking was $33,500 and that, after the taking, one-third of that value had been lost to appellee. Under the contested charge, the jury would have been authorized to find from this evidence that the market value of the strip of appellee’s property actually taken was approximately $11,000 which is the difference between the market value of the “whole lot” immediately before and *638after the taking. However, a significant portion of this $11,000 lost in value would represent the amount that appellee’s remainder had been damaged as the result of the taking of the strip. It appears that employment of the term “whole lot” in the contested charge, which purports to give the measure of damages for the portion actually taken and considered as a part of the whole, is in fact easily confused with a statement of the proper measure of consequential damages to that portion which remains. “ ‘The proper measure of consequential damages to the remainder [property not taken] is the diminution, if any, in the market value of the remainder in its circumstances just prior to the time of the taking compared with its market value in its new circumstance just after the time of the taking.’ [Cits.]” Justice v. Ga. Power Co., 164 Ga. App. 599, 601 (298 SE2d 579) (1982). Thus, since the jury in this partial taking case was given the instant charge and was also charged on consequential damages, there clearly was, as DOT asserts, the potential for a double recovery by the condemnee of consequential damages. The value of property is entirely different from, the diminution in the value of property. The value of property is to be paid if it is taken. The diminution in value to property is to be paid if it is damaged as a result of the taking.
In Elliott v. Fulton County, 220 Ga. 377, 381 (139 SE2d 312) (1964), our Supreme Court dealt with a contested jury instruction, the literal language of which differs in no small degree from that of Bridges and from the wording of the charge in the instant case. A careful review of the decision in Elliott also demonstrates that the actual testimony given therein as to the value of the remainder after the taking clearly did not take into account consequential damages hereto as the result of the taking. The Supreme Court did not conclude that a charge employing the language from Bridges should have been given but, instead, held that Bridges “could have been adhered to in this case.” (Emphasis supplied.) Elliott v. Fulton County, supra at 381. On this analysis, it might be possible to construe Elliott, not as a blanket endorsement of the Bridges language as a correct abstract principle of law for purposes of jury instruction, but as no more than a holding that, considering the entirety of the charge in which it was given and the evidence to which it was to be applied, the Bridges instruction did not constitute reversible error in that particular case. However, as the majority points out, the Supreme Court in Elliott also held that Bridges did enunciate “a correct rule” and I must regretfully agree that that seeming endorsement of Bridges constitutes a sufficient bar to this court’s utilization of the instant case as a vehicle for holding that a jury instruction in the language of Bridges constitutes reversible error by allowing for a double recovery of consequential damages.
Finally, I cannot agree with the majority insofar as it may inti*639mate that the decision in Wright v. MARTA, 248 Ga. 372 (283 SE2d 466) (1981), constitutes a reaffirmance by the Supreme Court of its Elliott decision. It is clear that the Supreme Court in Wright did not inferentially decline to overrule Bridges and Elliott. The Supreme Court merely noted that, other than as to the issue of consequential damages, the correctness of a charge employing language from Bridges was not before it. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will have that issue before it, if not in the instant case, at some time in the not too distant future.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge McMurray joins in this special concurrence.