Mississippi State Highway Commission v. Taylor, 41781

• Decision Date: 21 November 1960
• Docket Number: No. 41781,41781
• Citation: 240 Miss. 1,124 So.2d 684
• Parties: MISSISSIPPI STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION v. Elizabeth Graves TAYLOR et al.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 684

124 So.2d 684

240 Miss. 1

MISSISSIPPI STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION v. Elizabeth Graves TAYLOR et al.

No. 41781.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Nov. 21, 1960.

Boyd & Holifield, Welch, Gibbes & Graves, Laurel, for appellant.

Cecil G. Johnson, Ellisville, Collins & Tew, Laurel, for appellees.

McGEHEE, Chief Justice.

This is the second appearance of the above styled cause on appeal to this Court. See Mississippi State Highway Commission v. Taylor, 237 Miss. 847, 116 So.2d 757. The first verdict was in the sum of $40,000, which was held to be grossly excessive and the case was also reversed on the further ground that there had been reversible error in the exclusion of evidence offered by the appellant as to the purchase price paid by the appellees for the property through which the right of way was being condemned. The purchase had been made four and one-half years prior to the trial at a price of $15,000. The Court here held that the purchase price paid under such circumstances was a factor which a prospective purchaser would consider in arriving at the value of the property before the taking of the 21.69-acre strip of the land of the appellees.

The Court is now of the opinion, after a careful consideration of all of the competent testimony in the case, that the verdict is still grossly excessive and that the case should be reversed unless within ten days from this date the appellees shall enter a remittitur reducing the amount of the verdict from $25,000 to the sum of $17,500. There are other alleged errors assigned, such as the refusal of the trial court to permit the appellant to introduce an application made by the appellees for a loan on the property shortly after the same was purchased on March 25, 1954, as an admission against interest, at the purchase price of $15,000, and in which application the appellees stated that they valued the improvements on the land at $6,000 and the land itself at the sum of $9,000, making a total of a $15,000 valuation; and it is also assigned as error that the trial court, after holding that one of the witnesses for the appellee was not competent to testify as to the value of the property before the taking of the right of way by the appellant for the reason that he had never been on the property until a few days before the trial of the case about sixteen months after the Highway Commission had taken possession of the 21.69-acre right of way, permitted the same witness to testify as to the value before the taking in response to a hypothetical question. Assuming that the trial court was in error in both instances, we do not think that under all the facts and circumstances of this case his rulings amounted to reversible error since there was no dispute of the fact that the appellees admittedly paid $15,000 for the property on March 25, 1954.

The farm of the appellees, which was bisected by the 21.69-acre strip taken for the right of way by the appellant, consisted of approximately 124 acres of land which was located approximately three miles southwest of Ellisville in Jones County, Mississippi and used largely as a pasture for an indefinite number of cattle. Across the northern portion of this tract of land...