O.K., Inc. v. State Highway Dept., 19908
| Decision Date | 08 November 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 19908,19908 |
| Citation | 213 Ga. 666,100 S.E.2d 906 |
| Parties | O. K., Inc., v. STATE HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT of Georgia. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
The act of the General Assembly, approved March 13, 1957 (Ga.L.1957, p. 387 et seq.), which provides procedures for the condemnation of private property for public use by the State and other political entities, supplementary to Chapter 36-2 of the Code of 1933, does not as a whole violate art. 1, sec. 3, paragraph 1 of the Constitution of the State of Georgia (Code, § 2-301), in that said act provides an adequate method for determining the value of property sought to be taken and for just and adequate compensation to be first paid.
Clifford Oxford, Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.
Eugene Cook, Atty. Gen., Paul Miller, E. J. Summerour, Asst. Attys. Gen., Harold Sheats, Paul H. Anderson, W. Neal Baird Atlanta, for defendant in error.
The judgment under review is one dismissing the petition for injunctive relief.
O. K., Inc., in its petition against the State Highway Department of Georgia, sought to enjoin the defendant from further proceeding with its attempt to condemn the plaintiff's property. It was alleged that the defendant was proceeding, under the provisions of the act of the General Assembly, approved March 13, 1957 (Ga.L.1957, p. 387 et seq.), in the condemnation of the plaintiff's land for a State and public highway in Fulton County, and was seeking to acquire a fee-simple title to the lands of the plaintiff. It was asserted that such condemnation proceeding was illegal and void because said act of 1957 is unconstitutional and void for the reason that the Act violates art. 1, sec. 3, paragraph 1 of the Constitution of the State of Georgia (Code, § 2-301), in that the act provides no adequate method or machinery for the determination of property value prior to the taking of the property of the plaintiff. It is further alleged that the act: (a) does not afford the plaintiff, as owner of the property sought to be condemned, an opportunity to be heard on the appointment of the Special Master who is to determine the compensation to be paid him; (b) limits the class of persons who may be appointed as Special Master to competent practicing attorneys at law who have practiced for at least three years, without reference to their knowledge or experience in the field of real estate values, and that this thereby deprives the owner of his property; (c) fails to provide the condemnee any right to subpoena witnesses and the production of documents, thereby rendering the owner unable to present fairly and fully before the Special Master evidence of the value of his property; and (d) where on appeal the jury awards an amount less than the award made by the Special Master, the act requires the condemnee to pay 7% interest on the overage and thereby renders 'it impossible for such owner to accept the amount of the award of the Special Master in any case where an appeal is filed except at the peril of having to return at some unknowable future time an unknowable portion of such award with interest thereon at the rate which he cannot earn upon any safe and secure investment of the amount of the award, with the result that the only prudent course which a property owner may pursue in the event of an award by a Special Master under the provisions of said Act and an appeal therefrom is a decline to draw down the award, to be deprived of its use pending the final determination of the appeal before a jury which may be, and in practice often is, a period of several years, and at the same time to be deprived of his property and of its use and productiveness.'
The attack being upon the act, as a whole, we shall consider only the general question as to whether or not the act or 1957, supra, is invalid as a whole for any of the reasons urged,...
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First Nat. Bank of Atlanta v. State Highway Dept., 22020
...writ of error and the Court of Appeals properly transferred it to this court. The decision of this court in O. K., Inc. v. State Highway Department, 213 Ga. 666, 100 S.E.2d 906, is not authority to sustain the provision for the payment of interest by the condemnee under Section 15 of the Ac......
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Collins v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority
...of due process and equal protection of the laws. These issues have been decided adversely to appellant in O.K., Inc. v. State Hwy. Dept. of Ga., 213 Ga. 666, 100 S.E.2d 906; and State Hwy. Dept. v. Respess, 111 Ga.App. 787(2), 143 S.E.2d 434. "So long as the procedure used to take the conde......
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Kellett v. Fulton County
...S.E.2d 387; Zorn v. Walker, 206 Ga. 181, 56 S.E.2d 511; City of Macon v. Benson, 175 Ga. 502, 166 S.E. 26. In O. K. Inc. v. State Highway Dept. of Ga., 213 Ga. 666, 100 S.E.2d 906, this court held that the Act of 1957, supra, does not as a whole violate art. 1, sec. 3, par. 1 of the Constit......
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