Court Opinion

ID: 9846178
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:36:16.392621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:34.764499
License: Public Domain

Hall, Presiding Judge,
dissenting. While I disagree with the decisions, I readily concede that Georgia is the most liberal jurisdiction in the nation in approving awards and verdicts of compensation to condemnees. Bowers v. Fulton County, 221 Ga. 731 *310(146 SE2d 884); Hard v. Housing Authority of the City of Atlanta, 219 Ga. 74 (132 SE2d 25); State Hwy. Dept. v. Lumpkin, 222 Ga. 727 (152 SE2d 557); State Hwy. Dept. v. J. A. Worley & Co., 103 Ga. App. 25 (118 SE2d 298); State Hwy. Dept. v. Thomas, 115 Ga. App. 372 (154 SE2d 812). The majority opinion is in keeping with the philosophy of these decisions. However, no judge contests the fact that the appellant’s objections to the testimony of several witnesses for the condemnee concerning the consequential damages to the entire farm were meritorious. The majority hold as a matter of law that this erroneous testimony could not have misled the jury. In my opinion this is in direct conflict with Ga. Power Co. v. Cannon, 120 Ga. App. 721 (172 SE2d 142), which held it was reversible "error to overrule the condemnor’s timely objections .” The Cannon case is not limited to a situation where the same witness testifies to the value of the easement taken and also to the depreciated value of the whole plot of land, including the land over which the proposed easement would run. The element of double damages is equally present in a situation where one witness testifies to the value of the easement and another witness testifies as to the depreciated value of the entire plot of land. It is true that the trial court’s charge to the jury followed the Cannon case; however, this does not cure the error of overruling appellant’s objections. The late Mr. Justice Jackson, one of the nation’s greatest advocates, said: "The naive assumption that prejudicial effects can be overcome by instructions to the jury ... all practicing lawyers know to be unmitigated fiction.” Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U. S. 440,453 (69 SC 716, 93 LE 790).
It is also contended that even though the above error be considered harmful, the appellant waived the objection by going into the matter during the cross examination of one witness. I disagree. The appellant carefully preserved the point that evidence of double damages was being illegally introduced by timely objections to this testimony by each of four witnesses. The cross examination of one of these witnesses was for the very purpose of trying to pin the witness down on what basis he was testifying to the consequential damages. Failing to get this, appellant moved again to exclude the same illegal testimony on cross examination. In my opinion, it cannot be reasonably contended that the appellant ever *311acquiesced in the improper method of proving consequential damages. See in this regard a similar holding in City of Atlanta v. Atlanta Title &c. Co., 45 Ga. App. 265, 267-268 (164 SE 224): "the cross examination of the plaintiff’s witness was not the equivalent of such introduction . . . The verdict . . . cannot be approved as a fair and legal termination of the case, in view of the important and apparently persuasive evidence which the court erroneously admitted in behalf of the plaintiff . . . The ends of justice demand another trial.”
As in this case, the so-called waiver by cross examination rule frequently works to place a party in an untenable position during the trial. It is held in such disrepute by the bar that in a rare manifestation of unanimity, both the Georgia Association of Plaintiffs’ Trial Attorneys and the Georgia Defense Lawyers Association would applaud its abolition.
I would reverse the judgment of the trial court on the enumerations of error discussed in Division 1 of the majority opinion.
I am authorized to state that Judge Eberhardt concurs in this dissent.