Com., Dept. of Highways v. Raybourn
| Decision Date | 25 May 1962 |
| Citation | 359 S.W.2d 611 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS, Appellant, v. Wade RAYBOURN et al., Appellees. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
John B. Breckinridge, Atty. Gen., H. D. Reed, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Paul E. Hunley, Dept. of Highways, Frankfort, for appellant.
H. R. Wilhoit, Grayson, for appellees.
WADDILL, Commissioner.
In a proceeding by the Commonwealth to obtain right of way for the construction of a new highway #60 east of the city of Olive Hill, the landowners, Wade Raybourn and his wife, were awarded $1,500 in the county court for their .93 acre of land taken. They appealed to the circuit court where, upon a jury trial, they were awarded $5,000 for the land and $32,500 for damages to the remainder. From a judgment entered pursuant to this award, the Commonwealth has appealed.
During 1951 the Raybourns erected a motel east of Olive Hill on a .38 acre tract of land they held under lease which abuts old highway #60 and lies south of it. They acquired title to this land by deed dated December 27, 1955. On February 28, 1957, they obtained a deed to a 1.72-acre tract which is located south of and contiguous to their first tract. The land condemned by the Commonwealth lies entirely within this second tract of land.
The Commonwealth urges as error the trial court's refusal to limit the proof of the Raybourns' damages to the second tract alone. Before we can reach the merits of this contention, we must consider the correctness of the trial court's interpretation of the pleadings. The petition specifically described the land sought to be condemned so as to locate it solely within the boundaries of the tract acquired by the Raybourns in 1957. Following this delineation the property being condemned was further referred to as being a portion of the two tracts the Raybourns acquired in 1955 and 1957 by the heretofore mentioned deeds. The trial court held in effect that, since the petition contained this reference to the two deeds, the Commonwealth had conceded that the two tracts constitute a single unit of land. This ruling was erroneous because the statement in the petition was obviously nothing more than a reference to a source of title and, being such, does not preclude the Commonwealth from introducing proof to show why the two tracts should not be regarded as a single unit of land for the purpose of determining damages.
Ordinarily, two or more parcels of land constitute one...
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Com. Dept. of Highways v. Tackett
...that a buyer with knowledge of a proposed project cannot recover more than the price he paid. We also have considered Commonwealth v. Raybourn, Ky., 359 S.W.2d 611 (1962). The holding in that case was that where a landowner, after learning of the planned condemnation, purchased an additiona......
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Arkansas State Highway Commission v. Dean, 5--4269
...across the tract they purchased from Ott. The Kentucky Court of Appeals had a very similar case before it in Commonwealth Dept. of Highways v. Raybourn, 359 S.W.2d 611. In that case Raybourn owned a motel on a .38 acre tract of land abutting on old Highway No. 60. They learned that the high......