Minyard v. Texas Power & Light Co.
| Decision Date | 17 September 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 15537,15537 |
| Citation | 271 S.W.2d 957 |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Betty MINYARD et al., Appellants, v. TEXAS POWER & LIGHT COMPANY, Appellee. |
John W. West, Dallas, and W. K. Baldridge, Denton, for appellants.
Burford, Ryburn, Hincks & Ford, and Robert E. Burns, Dallas, for appellee.
The owners of property condemned for easement for a power line bring this appeal from the judgment of the trial court because they believe the award of damages for the property taken was insufficient and because of the finding that such owners' other property was not depreciated in value as result of the condemnation.
Judgment affirmed.
Under provisions of law the Texas Power & Light Company condemned for use as an easement for a power line a strip of land 100 feet in width, amounting to 5.01 acres. This strip runs through the property belonging to Mrs. Betty Minyard and her minor children. Their property, before condemnation, comprised approximately 110 acres located near the growing town of Lewisville, in Denton County, Texas. The condemnation occurred in 1951 at a time when the entire 110 acres was rural in character and was in use as a farm. It was within the contemplation of the owners to subdivide the property into lots and blocks at and prior to that time, but nothing had been done by them to that end and the property had never been surveyed for the purpose or otherwise marked.
The owners appealed from the award of the commissioners in condemnation, but upon the trial no issue was posed save the value of the property taken for easement purposes less its value remaining to the owners as subject to such purposes, and the diminution in value of the remaining uncondemned property. Hence the owners carried the burden of proof upon the issues tried in the court below.
The owners conceived the plan of having a subdivision map or plat drawn of the entire 110 acres after the condemnation took place. They employed a person skilled in such work to draw such a map and plat in complete disregard of the location of the property condemned, afterward superimposing the condemned strip upon the same. The person who drew the instrument had never seen the property but prepared his plat from the metes and bounds and size of the property as disclosed from abstract examination. The condemned strip, as superimposed, ran across a great many of the lots so platted. Upon the trial the owners offered the map or plat in evidence. There was no offer of limitation as to its purpose. It was excluded by the court. Actually, as of the time of the offer, no predicate had been laid for the introduction of the plat for any purpose no matter how limited. Likewise, the court excluded proffered testimony based upon the map or plat, or based on the value of lots or blocks considered as actually marked off within the 110 acres and within the 100 foot strip condemned.
We believe the court did not err in excluding such as evidence. Where the property condemned is a part of a single tract of land, all of which is owned by a person...
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