Mississippi Gulf Properties, LLC v. Eagle Mechanical, Inc.

98 So. 3d 1097, 2012 Miss. App. LEXIS 562, 2012 WL 3932667
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedSeptember 11, 2012
DocketNo. 2011-CA-00139-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 98 So. 3d 1097 (Mississippi Gulf Properties, LLC v. Eagle Mechanical, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mississippi Gulf Properties, LLC v. Eagle Mechanical, Inc., 98 So. 3d 1097, 2012 Miss. App. LEXIS 562, 2012 WL 3932667 (Mich. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

FAIR, J.,

for the Court:

¶ 1. This is an appeal from a jury verdict in a drainage case. Michael Dodson was awarded $170,000 for flood damage stemming from the paving of adjacent property owned by Champion Chrysler.1 Champion appeals, and Dodson cross-appeals. Finding no error, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

FACTS

¶ 2. Champion and Dodson owned adjacent properties on Pass Road in Gulfport. In 2001, Champion expanded its car dealership by filling and paving approximately 1.8 acres of previously undeveloped lowland on its lot. The lowland was adjacent to Dodson’s property, and it had operated as a natural detention area, absorbing rain and holding runoff from surrounding areas. There was a ditch through the 1.8 acres that held excess water and drained it through a culvert under a warehouse building on Dodson’s property. About a year before the Champion property was paved, Champion’s predecessor in title granted the City of Gulfport a drainage easement over the ditch and surrounding area. The City placed a pipe with several raised inlets in the ditch and tied it to the culvert under Dodson’s warehouse.

¶ 3. Before it was paved, the 1.8 acres was graded and filled significantly in places. In addition to the fill dirt, the asphalt paving and limestone base added about six inches to the elevation. Overall, the Champion property was raised between three and five feet at some points along Dodson’s property line. The contractor testified that he graded the Champion property so it would drain into the inlets installed by the City.

¶ 4. The paving eliminated water retention on the Champion property and left the surface impervious, increasing runoff onto Dodson’s lot. Dodson’s warehouse building, also used as an HVAC fabrication facility, was located near the property line. It stood in the natural course of drain flow, but the drain pipe under the building had always been sufficient to carry away runoff when Champion’s 1.8 acres was in its natural condition. After the paving, the warehouse began flooding during heavy rains— approximately seven or eight times per year. This caused extensive damage to the building and prevented it from being used for either storage or manufacture of HVAC components. Dodson testified that he also lost equipment and stored materials during the first flood, which he valued at $20,169.13. His appraiser, Mike Garvey, testified that the flooding had diminished the Dodson property value by either $144,000 or $157,000, depending on the approach used to value the property prior to the flooding.

¶ 5. Dodson contended Champion was liáble for the damage to his property because it had unreasonably altered the natural drainage. The jury agreed and returned a verdict for $170,000. Champion appeals, and Dodson cross-appeals.

DISCUSSION

¶ 6. On direct appeal, Champion enumerates eighteen issues. For the purposes of [1102]*1102clarity and economy we have consolidated some of them.

1. Mistrial

¶ 7. Dodson filed this lawsuit in January 2003. In 2007, the first trial ended in a mistrial. This appeal followed a second trial, which was held in September 2010.

¶8. Champion now contends that the trial court erred in granting the 2007 mistrial. According to Champion, the trial court had no good reason to grant a mistrial and, in the process, denied Champion the advantages it had gained during the first trial. Without any real supporting argument, Champion contends that the original trial judge, the Honorable Jerry Terry, must have been biased in favor of Dodson, whose wife is the Honorable Lisa Dodson. Judges Dodson and Terry served as circuit judges in the same district. We note, however, that Champion offered no objection to Judge Terry presiding over the trial until after the adverse ruling.

¶ 9. Further discussion of this assignment of error would be academic, as the subsequent retrial has left this issue moot. Interlocutory rulings of the trial court that are rendered moot by a subsequent trial on the merits cannot be appealed. See Gibson v. Wright, 870 So.2d 1250, 1254 (¶ 8) (Miss.Ct.App.2004). Even if We were to find that the trial court erred in granting the mistrial, we do not see how any relief can be afforded as the case has already been retried before a different circuit judge and a different jury.

2. Admissibility of Dodson’s Appraisal

¶ 10. In its second issue, Champion contends the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of Mike Garvey, Dodson’s appraiser. Garvey determined the values of Dodson’s property before and after it began flooding. His status as an expert in real-estate appraisal and the relevance of his testimony are not disputed. Instead, Champion attacks the methodology employed by Garvey, specifically his appraisal of the after value. According to Champion, Garvey’s opinion should have been excluded by the trial court under Gulf South Pipeline Company v. Pitre, 35 So.3d 494 (Miss.2010).

¶ 11. In Pitre, the Mississippi Supreme Court recognized that there are three accepted methods for determining the fair market value of real property: “(1) the cost approach, (2) the income-capitalization approach, and (3) the market-data or comparative-sales approach.” Id. at 498 (¶ 6).

¶ 12. Pitre was an eminent domain case where land was taken for a buried gas pipeline. The expert there used the comparable sales method to determine the value of the property in its before condition. The specific issue was the diminution in value of the portion of the property that was not taken, i.e., how the presence of the pipeline would affect the market value of the rest of the property. This is determined by the “before and after rule,” which is generally used to value damages for permanent injury to real property. See Copiah Dairies, Inc. v. Addkison, 247 Miss. 327,153 So.2d 689, 693 (1963).

¶ 13. The expert in Pitre first appraised the property before the taking, then assigned diminution percentages to the remainder not taken for the pipeline— twenty percent for the house, fifteen percent for the land, and so forth. Pitre, 35 So.3d at 496-97 (¶ 2). In setting these values, the appraiser “offered no pretense that he was following any recognized method or procedure acceptable in the appraisal industry, and he admitted he was not relying on peer-reviewed articles or industry publications.” Id. at 499 (¶ 9).

[1103]*1103His testimony that there were no comparable sales of property affected by buried gas pipelines was contradicted both by the record and judicial knowledge. Id. The supreme court concluded that the expert’s opinion was “purely subjective, little more than rank speculation.” Id. at 499-500 (¶ 10). “Where an expert admits that no basis satisfying the accepted criteria for that profession exists for an opinion, the opinion should be excluded.” Id. at 499 (¶10).

¶ 14. In this case, Garvey admitted to no unreliability or arbitrariness in his methodology.2 Garvey testified that he followed the familiar “before and after rule,” appraising Dodson’s property, first as if it were not flooding and then in its actual condition. Based on his inspection, Garvey concluded that the warehouse building was unuseable. He also found that the land under the building, because it flooded regularly, could no longer be put to productive commercial use.

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98 So. 3d 1097, 2012 Miss. App. LEXIS 562, 2012 WL 3932667, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mississippi-gulf-properties-llc-v-eagle-mechanical-inc-missctapp-2012.