Court Opinion

ID: 9540931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:20:58.42457+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:01:46.845698
License: Public Domain

Banke, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
While the court’s charge on the burden of proof was perhaps technically erroneous, I do not believe that it could have harmed the county in anyway. The actual text of this portion of the charge is as follows: “[T]he effect of the pleadings is to put the burden of proof upon the plaintiff to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the material allegations made by the plaintiff are true . . . However, in this case, I charge you that in a condemnation case, if you reach the point where you’re considering the value of the property, the burden of proof is on the county ... to prove the value of the property taken, and the value of any consequential damages, if any, of the remaining property.”
*323Decided March 15, 1985
Rehearing denied March 29, 1985
George P. Dillard, Richard W. Calhoun, for appellant.
E. T. Hendon, Jr., Edward E. Carriere, Jr., for appellee.
Both sides presented expert testimony with regard to the value of the property taken and the damage to the remainder caused by the presence of the sewer line. The plaintiff’s expert testified that the easement was worth $2,400 and that the remainder was damaged in the amount of $17,870, while the county’s expert testified that the easement was worth only $1,100 and that the remainder was not damaged at all. (In fact, the county’s expert testified that the presence of the sewer line benefited the remainder.) The jury awarded the plaintiff actual damages in the amount of $6,163.
The court’s charge, taken as a whole, certainly did not give the false impression that the plaintiff’s evidence was entitled to more weight than the county’s; and, viewing the verdict in the light of the evidence presented, it is obvious to me that the alleged error had no effect on the outcome of the case. Perceiving no reasonable possibility that the error in question may have been harmful, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Deen, Presiding Judge McMurray, and Presiding Judge Birdsong, join in this dissent.