Court Opinion

ID: 9576543
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:25:41.921094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:09:35.061690
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the opinion and in the judgment, and take this opportunity to present some additional considerations relative to the fixing of awards under our constitutional requirement.
1. Art. I, Sec. Ill, Par. I (a) of the Constitution of Georgia of 1983 provides: “Except as otherwise provided in this Paragraph, private property shall not be taken or damaged for public purposes without just and adequate compensation first being paid.” In Calhoun v. State Hwy. Dept., 223 Ga. 65 (153 SE2d 418) (1967), our court held: “It is beyond the power of the General Assembly to specify what evidence can or cannot be introduced to prove just and adequate compensation. If they have such power they could exclude all evidence and thus destroy the Constitution and private property also. ... We therefore hold that for the reason that the 1966 Act is an attempt to invade the exclusive jurisdiction of the judicial department, it offends the constitutional separation of powers and is therefore void.” 223 Ga. at 68, 69. (At issue in the Calhoun case was an Act of the General Assembly which, in essence, sought to evade the holding of this court in Hard v. Housing Auth. of the City of Atlanta, 219 Ga. 74 (132 SE2d 25) (1963).)
2. It is seen that “just and adequate compensation” is a matter whose interpretation rests with the judicial branch of government, and with it exclusively.
In this connection, attention is invited to the provisions of OCGA §§ 22-2-63 and 22-2-109, which contemplate partial takings. The former of these sections provides (relative to consequential damages and *498benefits in the assessor method of condemnation) as follows: “provided, further, that nothing in this Code section shall be so construed as to deprive the owner of the actual value of his property or interest so taken or used.”
The latter, in the final sentence of sub-paragraph (c), provides: “Such consequential benefits, if any, may be offset against such consequential damages, if any; but in no event shall consequential benefits be offset against the value of the property or interest taken for such public improvement.”
3. It cannot be denied, that just and adequate compensation must be just and adequate to the owner and to the condemning authority, as well. Justice is no more done in the case of overpayment than in the case of underpayment. As the final interpreters of our Constitution, we are called upon here to address the applicability of these code sections, to determine whether they be faithful applications of the constitutional mandate. Calhoun, supra.
Consider the following:
(a) A partial taking (hypothetically, of a narrow strip) might indeed render a remainder, still within the ownership of the condemnee, nearly worthless. Manifestly, “just and adequate compensation” cannot be restricted to the value of property actually taken, but concern must be given to the total situation. We will assume that the entire tract (the “whole lot”) was worth prior to the condemnation a factor of 100. We will assume further that the portion taken, in and of itself and unrelated to the remainder, had a market value at a factor of 10. However, under our given factual situation, the value of the remainder is so diminished by virtue of the severance that its value is not a factor of 90 (100 minus 10), but 20.
It would be manifestly unjust for the condemning authority to damage the interest of the owner so as to reduce the value of that interest from 100 to 20, and to pay that owner only the value of the part taken — specifically, only a factor of 10. Having an interest worth 100 before, and only 20 afterward, the owner has been damaged in a factor of 80, which is the amount of just and adequate compensation which our Constitution would require be paid him.
It is this circumstance, I suggest, for which the code sections were drawn, and this evil which they were designed to prevent.
(b) There are other instances, however. One would be where severance from a tract (the severed portion being valued at a factor of 10) diminishes in no way the value of the remainder, which, if the whole tract be considered at a factor of 100 prior to condemnation, would be valued at 90 after condemnation. Just and adequate compensation in this case would be factually equivalent to the value of the property actually taken. The owner’s interest before was worth 100, and now it is worth 90 — hence just and adequate compensation *499would be a factor of 10, which is the difference in the two computations, before and after condemnation.
(c) The next case is one rarely reflected in our law books but, given the dynamics of burgeoning urban development, must become increasingly a matter of concern. That is where the taking for the purposes of public improvement results in the manifold enrichment of a property owner — far over and above any value of the partial taking severed from his remainder.
Using the same factor of 100 as the value of property prior to condemnation, assume in this instance, the taking is necessary for the installation of major public improvements (as example, a rapid transit station; or a highway interchange; or a major civic facility). The value of the property taken is 10, as in the other two cases. But the value of the remainder after the taking, and by virtue of the public use of the parcel taken (as well as other surrounding parcels) is exploded to a factor of 1000!
4. What is, in this last instance, just and adequate compensation? Before the taking, the owner’s interest had a value of 100; after the taking, its value was 1000. It is quite true that we would never expect a property owner to compensate the public for enriching him. But is it logical that the public must pay him, even more, for making him wealthy?
Just and adequate compensation, then, in this third case is simply this: the difference between the value of the interest of the owner before the condemnation, and the value of the interest of the owner after the condemnation — the same rule as in our two preceding hypotheses.
If the value of the remainder subsequent to the condemnation exceeds the prior value of the whole tract, the owner’s entitlement from the condemning authority would be limited to nominal damages.
5. It is seen that the same rule may be applied to each of these three cases. We do not need to trouble juries with discussions of the value of the property taken, or a weighing of “consequential benefits” and “consequential damages,” or questions of “whole lots” and “severance” and other terms which serve to generate uncertainty.
Just and adequate compensation means that the owner must be made whole, to whatever extent he has been damaged by virtue of the taking. (In this discussion, we make a mistake to speak of “damage to property.” Real property, itself, is not damaged; only the value of the owner’s interest in real property is damaged.)
In each instance, the task of the trior of fact is the same: it must determine the value of the condemnee’s interest before the taking; and it must determine the value of such interest, if any, as shall remain after the taking. If the value is less afterward than it was before, then that difference must be awarded to the condemnee as just and *500adequate compensation. If value is the same or greater, then the con-demnee’s entitlement is but nominal damages.
Decided March 4, 1986.
Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Jack L. Park, Jr., Special Assistant Attorney General, for appellant.
Harvey J. Kennedy, Jr., for appellee.
6. “Just and adequate compensation” should be a two-way street. The public should not expect to finance its improvements by the expropriation of private property. Nor should any citizen expect to be enriched (as opposed to compensated) from the public treasury.