City of Atlanta v. McLucas, 46743
| Decision Date | 21 January 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 46743,No. 1,46743,1 |
| Citation | 187 S.E.2d 560,125 Ga.App. 349 |
| Parties | CITY OF ATLANTA v. Harriett L. McLUCAS et al |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Albert B. Wallace, Jonesboro, for appellant.
Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy, B. D. Murphy, Frank Love, Jr., Atlanta, for appellees.
Syllabus Opinion by the Court
In this eminent domain case the city was acquiring land from Mrs. McLucas on which she had placed a long-term lease, the interest of the lessee having been acquired by a separate trial as to value. Expert witnesses were used by the owner and by the city for showing value. After a verdict of the jury fixing the value of Mrs. McLucas' interest as owner-lessor, present and reversionary, the city appeals from the judgment on the verdict.
1. Enumeration of error 1 is as to the admission of evidence as to the value of the owner's interest 'subject to the lease,' it being contended that the true question was the value of the owner's reversionary interest without any consideration of the lease on the property.
The true rule, as we understand it, is that in this kind of situation the owner is entitled to have awarded to him the present value of the right to receive rents over the period of the lease, together with whatever the value ofthe reversion may be. Georgia Power Co. v. Brooks, 207 Ga. 406, 409, 62 S.E.2d 183. Consequently, it is not possible to disassociate the fact of the lease in awarding to the owner his proper damages.
2. Enumerations of error 2 through 9 are as to the admission of testimony of the owner's expert wherein he gave instances of sales of other nearby properties, deemed by him to be comparable, and stating the sale prices which he had obtained from an examination of the public deed records and from conversations with the sellers, the purchasers and in one instance from the brother of a seller. It is urged that this testimony was hearsay and thus improperly admitted to prove the fact of the sale prices. The court, however, in overruling the objections to the evidence, asserted that it was admitted for the purpose only of showing the basis for the expert's opinion as to value, and not as proof of the facts as to the sale prices.
We have held many times that an expert's opinion may be based in part upon hearsay, and that when it is based thereon it goes to the weight and credibility of the testimony-not to its admissibility. Gulf Refining Co. v. Smith, 164 Ga. 811(4), 139 S.E. 716; State Highway Dept. v. Howard 124 Ga.App. 76(2), 183 S.E.2d 26. But see footnote 1 in Hoard v. Wiley, 113 Ga.App. 328, 332, 147 S.E.2d 782.
Appellant contends that since the owner did not so limit the testimony when it was being elicited from her expert, the court had no right to do so and that its limitation on the purpose of the evidence did not eliminate the error of admitting it. This contention is without merit. The judge who presides is in control of the court. It is his prerogative to rule upon objections to the admission of evidence, and in making his ruling to place a limitation thereon which renders its admission to be in conformity with the law. '(T)he trial judge is more than a mere chairman preserving order at a meeting or a mere moderator of a debate, but he is a minister of justice with a duty to govern the progress of a trial, and where possible, to prevent the introduction of inadmissible evidence . . .' Heard v. Heard, 99 Ga.App. 864, 869, 110 S.E.2d 76, 80.
3. Appellant contends that it was unduly limited in its right of cross examination of certain...
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...you're going to put in" and not upon "what someone else told him." Since this testimony was not as to value (City of Atlanta v. McLucas, 125 Ga.App. 349(2), 187 S.E.2d 560 (1972); State Highway Dept. v. Howard, 124 Ga.App. 76(2), 183 S.E.2d 26 (1971); Gulf Refining Co. v. Smith, 164 Ga. 811......
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