Green Acres Memorial Park, Inc. v. Mississippi State Highway Commission

153 So. 2d 286, 246 Miss. 855, 1963 Miss. LEXIS 514
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedMay 13, 1963
Docket42658
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 153 So. 2d 286 (Green Acres Memorial Park, Inc. v. Mississippi State Highway Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Green Acres Memorial Park, Inc. v. Mississippi State Highway Commission, 153 So. 2d 286, 246 Miss. 855, 1963 Miss. LEXIS 514 (Mich. 1963).

Opinion

Rodgers, J.

This is an eminent domain proceeding, brought by the Mississippi Highway Commission against Creen Acres Memorial Park, Inc., a commercial, perpetual care, cemetery. The condemnation proceedings were instituted for the purpose of acquiring a strip of land across the back of the cemetery at a place where no grave spaces had been sold and no interments had been made. The Highway Commission sought the condemnation of the land for the purpose of building Highway 27.

*859 A survey and plat of the land had been made by Green Acres Memorial Park, Inc., (hereinafter called Cemetery) and this plat bad been recorded in the office of the chancery clerk. Covenants bad been recorded, restricting the nse of the property for interment of certain people.

The condemnation proceedings were begun in the County Court of Warren County by a petition properly describing the land. In due time a trial was bad and a judgment was entered in accordance with the verdict of the jury, permitting the acquisition of the strip of land, and assessing appellee’s damages at $4,000. The Cemetery appealed to the Circuit Court of Warren County where an order was entered affirming the judgment of the county court, and from this order the case has been appealed to this Court.

Appellant complains that reversible error occurred in the trial in the county court because: (1) A witness was permitted to give opinion evidence as to the value of the land taken, without giving evidence as to the value of the entire Cemetery before and after taking; (2) the trial judge permitted evidence to be introduced before the jury showing the value of the land that might be substituted for the land acquired; (3) the trial court should have permitted evidence of the sale price of a similar cemetery property; and (4) certain instructions requested by appellant should have been granted.

The record in this case shows that appellant is a commercial cemetery corporation and that it owned 103 acres of land a few miles east of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Evidence shows that when the property was surveyed certain markers were established on the land and that as the land is sold and is needed for the purpose of burial, it is graded and beautified by planting grass and shrubbery. The Cemetery is located on the south side of Highway 80 and extends south in the form of *860 an inverted letter “L”, that is to say, the bottom part of the “L” extends to the left, rather than to the right, and in a westerly direction.

The part condemned on the petition of the Commission is the extreme end of the Cemetery on the west side. At the time the condemnation proceedings were instituted the land was covered with hashes, briars and saplings.

After the Commission had introduced area maps showing the location and grade of the strip of land sought to be acquired for the construction of the highway, the jury was transported to the location of the property and permitted to observe the land taken and also the Cemetery property. The Commission then introduced the testimony of Mr. Sam Kliesdorf, an experienced land appraiser, who testified that the highest and best use for the property at the present time was for residential lots. He testified that the value of the acquired land was $800, to this he added the value of a fence taken at $41.60; a new fence to be built valued at $72.17, and the cost of gates and posts valued at $80, making a total of $993.77. He testified that the value of the Cemetery would be $1,000 less than before the taking. He stated he did not attribute any damages to the remainder of the Cemetery. He examined the land records of Warren County to ascertain whether or not any comparable property had been sold in the area, and he found that fourteen acres adjoining the Cemetery had been sold to Mr. Varner (President of the Cemetery) within the past year. He testified that documentary stamps of $1.10 appeared on the deed, indicating a sale price of $80 per acre.

Appellant objected to the testimony of Mr. Kliesdorf and predicates his first two suggestions of error upon the introduction of this evidence.

*861 I.

Appellant complains that the trial court should not have permitted the witness Kliesdorf to have given his opinion of the value of the land taken without requiring the witness to show the total value of the entire Cemetery before the taking and the value of the entire Cemetery immediately after the appropriation.

Appellant argues, “The question presented by this proposition is whether the rule of Mississippi State Highway v. Hillman, 189 Miss. 850, 198 So. 565 (1940), has been replaced by Morris v. Mississippi State Highway Commission, 240 Miss. 783, 129 So. 2d 367.”

The Hillman case, supra, reviewed the authorities, including Section 17 of the Constitution of 1890. The Legislature has since implemented the Constitution by enacting an eminent domain proceeding found in Chap. 3, Title 12, Code 1942, beginning with Sec. 2749. Under this law the justice of the peace is required by Sec. 2760, Code 1942, to instruct the jury that “The defendant is entitled to due compensation, not only for the value of the property to be actually taken as specified in the application, but also for damages, if any, which may result to him as a consequence of the taking * *

The factual question that immediately presents itself is: What is due compensation in this case? (Hn 1) It is obvious that the elements of compensation depend largely upon the nature and extent of the right taken, or the interest acquired, as well as upon the resulting injury to the owner of the property. (Hn 2) When the whole property is taken, the damage is the fair market value of the property. See Orgel on Valuation under Eminent Domain, 2d Ed., Vol. 1, Sec. 15, p. 76; 29 C. J. S., Eminent Domain, Sec. 138, p. 976.

(Hn 3) Market value means the fair cash, market value as between one who wants to purchase and one who *862 wants to sell, or the amount for which it would actually sell at the time (not what it might bring or ought to bring at some future time.) Orgel on Valuation, supra, p. 76; 29 C. J. S., Eminent Domain, See. 137, p. 974; Miss. State Highway Commission v. Hillman, 189 Miss. 850, 198 So. 565.

(Hn, 4) On the other hand, where a part of a tract of land is taken for public use, the “due compensation” which Section 17, Mississippi Constitution 1890, guarantees an owner is not only the value of the property taken, but also the damages accruing to the residue of the land resulting from the taking, and the measure of damage is the damage done to the fair market value of the entire tract by the taking. (Hn 5) In short, the owner is entitled to the difference in the value of the whole tract immediately before and immediately after the appropriation is made. This is said to be the rule in the “Hitman case”, supra. Many cases to the same effect have been decided by this Court since the decision in the Hillman case. Some of these authorities are listed in the cases of Union Producing Company v. Pittman, 245 Miss. 427, 146 So. 2d 553

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Bluebook (online)
153 So. 2d 286, 246 Miss. 855, 1963 Miss. LEXIS 514, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/green-acres-memorial-park-inc-v-mississippi-state-highway-commission-miss-1963.