North Biloxi Dev. Co., LLC v. Miss. Transp. Com'n

912 So. 2d 1118, 2005 Miss. App. LEXIS 750, 2005 WL 2650947
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedOctober 18, 2005
Docket2004-CA-00781-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 912 So. 2d 1118 (North Biloxi Dev. Co., LLC v. Miss. Transp. Com'n) 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
North Biloxi Dev. Co., LLC v. Miss. Transp. Com'n, 912 So. 2d 1118, 2005 Miss. App. LEXIS 750, 2005 WL 2650947 (Mich. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

912 So.2d 1118 (2005)

NORTH BILOXI DEVELOPMENT CO., L.L.C., f/k/a Highway 67 Development Co., L.L.C., Appellant
v.
MISSISSIPPI TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION, Appellee.

No. 2004-CA-00781-COA.

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

October 18, 2005.

*1121 Virgil G. Gillespie, Gulfport, attorney for appellant.

Jack Homer Pittman, Hattiesburg, attorney for appellee.

EN BANC.

KING, C.J., for the Court.

¶ 1. This appeal comes to this Court from the Special Court of Eminent Domain of the Second Judicial District of Harrison County. The landowner, North Biloxi Development Co., LLC, disputes the amount awarded to it by a jury for about seventy-two acres its property taken by eminent domain by the Mississippi Transportation Commission for construction of a highway. North Biloxi Development Co., LLC appeals and asserts the following errors:

I. Whether the trial court erred in granting instruction No. P-2 over the objection of the appellant.
II. Whether the trial court erred in granting instruction No. P-4 over the objection of the appellant.
III. Whether the trial court erred in granting instruction No. P-5 over the objection of the appellant.
IV. Whether the trial court erred in granting instruction No. P-6 over the objection of the appellant.
V. Whether the trial court erred in failing to grant instruction No. D-6 in favor of the appellant.
VI. Whether the trial court erred in allowing the jury to hear testimony less than the sum of $594,700, which was the amount of the original statement of value and the approved appraisal. This question was presented to the court at various times throughout the court and the court consistently held against the appellant in this regard.
VII. Whether the trial court erred in its ruling on the motion to limit filed by the appellant prior to trial regarding the appellee's use or nonuse of timber values in the appraisal.
VIII. Whether the trial court erred in overruling the appellant's motion for new trial.

Finding no error, we affirm.

FACTS

¶ 2. On August 2, 2001, the Mississippi Transportation Commission, (MTC), filed a complaint to condemn about seventy-two acres owned by North Biloxi Development Company, LLC (North Biloxi Development) in Harrison County for construction of a new highway from Interstate-10 to the Cowan-Lorraine Road Extension. MTC sought 71.814 acres for the project of North Biloxi Development's total acreage of 987.952. The acquisition also included limiting access to and from the new highway except in seven designated locations.

¶ 3. On the date of the taking, August 2, 2001, North Biloxi Development's land was in a single contiguous parcel undivided except that Mississippi Highway 15 ran *1122 through the easternmost part of the land placing approximately 16 acres on the east side of Highway 15 and the rest of the property on the west side. The MTC taking made an arc through the landowner's property dividing it into six separate and non-contiguous parcels. The nearly 988 acres of the landowner was located approximately two miles north of Interstate-10 and near the city limits of Biloxi and D'Iberville. Twenty eight acres of the approximate seventy-two acres of land to be taken by MTC was wetlands. North Biloxi Development total wetlands acreage is 347.

¶ 4. Shortly after August 2, 2001, the date of the taking, the court-appointed appraiser, Jeanne S. Adams of Gulfport, placed the value of the property at $323,000. On October 18, 2001, a quick take order was entered by the court giving MTC title to the property and the right of immediate possession. On November 16, 2001, MTC deposited a total of $589,515 into the registry of the Circuit Clerk of Harrison County for the quick take. The court allowed $1,000 of the funds to be paid to the court-ordered appraiser. By order filed January 3, 2002, the court directed the clerk to disburse $588,515 and any accrued interest to Gulfport attorney Virgil G. Gillespie, in trust, in order to obtain a release of a deed of trust on the property held by Peoples Bank of Biloxi, and upon such release being obtained the court ordered to disburse the balance of the funds to North Biloxi Development. (Peoples Bank and Lyle M. Page, trustee under the deed of trust, had been originally named as defendants.)

¶ 5. On August 16, 2002, MTC filed its statement of value, pursuant to Mississippi Code Annotated section 11-27-7 (Rev.2004), placing the fair market value of the property at the date of the taking at $461,865 with damages to the remainder of the property valued at $132,835 for a total compensation to the landowner of $594,700. The statement listed the elements of damages as "proximity damages." The statement said the highest and best use of the property was for residential development.

¶ 6. On January 14, 2003, MTC filed an amended statement of value placing the fair market value of the property at $461,860 and damages to the remainder at $6,365 for a total compensation of $468,225. The amended statement listed the elements of damage as "loss in value due to shape and uneconomic remnant." On April 29, 2003, MTC filed a second amended statement of value placing the fair market value of the acreage to be taken at $462,735, with damages to the remainder at $6,365, for a total compensation of $469,100. The second amended statement of value listed the elements of damage as "proximity damage." (The reasons for changes in MTC's statement of value will be set out in our discussion of the issues.) MTC's statement said the highest and best use for the property was residential development. On February 4, 2004, North Biloxi Development filed its statement of value placing the fair market value of the property to be taken at $466,791 and damage to the remainder at $1,488,485 for a total compensation of $1,955,276. The landowner listed the elements of damages as "severance, dividing the property into smaller parcels, taking the high ground of the property, increase in wetlands factor, decrease in highlands, market diminution in value, and other depreciation factors resulting from a severance and taking of this nature and magnitude." The statement said the highest and best use of the land was for a residential subdivision or golf course/residential development.

¶ 7. On May 8, 2003, an order was entered dismissing the Peoples Bank from *1123 the action since the bank had no further interest in the property and adding BankcorpSouth and J. Patrick Caldwell as defendants due to a deed of trust on the property recorded on October 11, 2001.

¶ 8. On May 9, 2003, the three judges of the County Court of Harrison County recused themselves because two of the litigants, William L. Guice, III, and Bobby G. O'Barr, were members of the bar practicing before the county court. T. Larry Wilson of Pascagoula was appointed to preside over the case.

¶ 9. A two-day trial began on February 18, 2004, before twelve jurors. The second day of trial the jury was taken to view the property. Construction on the new highway had already begun. Following the viewing, MTC called three witnesses, Bradley K. Anderson, project engineer for the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT); Charles Walters, an environmental scientist; and William B. Milton, a real estate appraiser who had twenty-five years of prior experience with MDOT.

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Bluebook (online)
912 So. 2d 1118, 2005 Miss. App. LEXIS 750, 2005 WL 2650947, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/north-biloxi-dev-co-llc-v-miss-transp-comn-missctapp-2005.