Arkansas State Highway Com'n v. Vick
| Decision Date | 14 January 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-293,84-293 |
| Citation | 682 S.W.2d 731,284 Ark. 372 |
| Parties | ARKANSAS STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION, Appellant, v. Hugh C. VICK et al., Appellee. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Thomas B. Keys and Philip N. Gowen, Staff Atty., Legal Div., Ark. State Highway and Transp. Dept., Little Rock, for appellant.
Bill W. Bristow, P.A., Jonesboro, for appellee.
The appellees owned a rectangular tract of commercial property having a 300-foot frontage on Caraway Road, a principal commercial thoroughfare in the city of Jonesboro, and extending back 600 feet from the frontage line. In December, 1981, the Highway Commission brought this action to condemn about three tenths of an acre, in the shape of a right triangle lying along the frontage for 117 feet and running back along the adjacent side for 223.9 feet. The Commission deposited $33,900 in court, which the landowners withdrew. At the trial in January, 1984, the jury fixed the value of the condemned tract at $90,000.
On direct appeal the Commission argues that the valuation testimony of the landowners' two expert witnesses should have been stricken because there was no fair and reasonable basis for their conclusions. Ark. State Hwy. Comm'n v. Cook, 257 Ark. 98, 514 S.W.2d 215 (1974). It is argued that the witnesses erroneously relied upon sales of smaller tracts that, owing to their size, were not comparable as a matter of law.
We disagree. The witnesses considered prior sales of some 13 smaller tracts in the Caraway Road area. They explained how they had made adjustments for differences in time (to give effect to inflation), in area, and in frontage. The witnesses explained in detail how they had arrived at their valuation. We find no abuse of the trial court's discretion in allowing the testimony in question. As we said in Ark. State Hwy. Comm'n v. N.W.A. Realty Corp., 262 Ark. 440, 557 S.W.2d 620 (1977):
It is the well established rule that the decision of the question whether the conditions surrounding another tract of land or its sale are sufficiently similar to the circumstances of the pending case and the land involved to admit evidence of its sale price as evidence of the value of the land in question rests largely in the discretion of the trial court.
Similarity in the size of two tracts is seldom exact, requiring adjustments by the expert witness, and it is only one of the factors to be considered. See Cook, supra. We cannot say as a matter of law that the sales relied upon below were so lacking in comparability as to be irrelevant or misleading. That being true, the experts' opinions were admissible, their weight being for the jury to decide.
On cross appeal the landowners argue that the trial court's allowance of interest at the rate of only 6% per annum upon the $56,100 difference between the Commission's deposit and the amount of the verdict is so inadequate as to amount to a taking of their property without just compensation.
To support their contention the landowners proved that during the period between the Commission's entry on the land in 1981 and the return of the verdict in 1984, money could be invested in bank certificates of deposit at 11.5% interest and borrowers were required to pay interest at rates ranging from 13.5% to 18%. The trial judge felt that he was bound by the statute which governs Highway Commission condemnations and allows interest at 6% from the date of surrender of possession to the date of payment. Ark.Stat.Ann. § 76-536 (Repl.1981). That statute, we have held, was not superseded by a general law increasing to 10% the interest rate allowable on judgments in general. Ark. State Hwy. Comm'n v. Scott, 264 Ark. 397, 571 S.W.2d 607 (1978).
The landowners' position in the case at bar is right. As a matter of just compensation and due process under the federal and state constitutions, a...
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...award during the time he is deprived both of the use of land and of the money representing its value." Arkansas State Highway Comm. v. Vick, 284 Ark. 372, 375, 682 S.W.2d 731, 732 (1985). "This is true because he who pays $1.00 tomorrow to discharge a debt of $1.00 due and payable today, pa......
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...six percent interest represents full compensation. We concluded that it did not under the circumstances in Arkansas State Highway Comm'n v. Vick, 284 Ark. 372, 682 S.W.2d 731 (1985), and we observed that interest "at a proper rate" was a good measure for deciding the amount to be added to t......
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