State v. Baker
| Decision Date | 29 November 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. B-7344,B-7344 |
| Citation | 574 S.W.2d 63 |
| Parties | The STATE of Texas, Petitioner, v. Mary A. Stephenson BAKER et al., Respondents. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
John L. Hill, Atty. Gen., Dean Arrington and Watson C. Arnold, Asst. Attys. Gen., Austin, for petitioner.
Garner, Vickers & Purdom, Robert E. Garner, Lubbock, Kolander & Templeton, Amarillo, for respondents.
The question presented is whether the trial court erred in a series of rulings which permitted the condemnees to introduce evidence about the condemnees' use of water from a water well located on a neighbor's tract of land. The State of Texas condemned a little more than five acres of land belonging jointly to Mrs. Baker and her children, the Stephensons. The part taken was for the purpose of enlarging the right-of-way for I.H. 27. The condemnees received $16,662.60 for the part taken. The State complains of the award of $64,900.00 for damages to the remainder, which consisted of a little more than 107 acres of farmland. The court of civil appeals in an unpublished opinion affirmed the judgment. We reverse the judgments of the courts below.
There was an irrigation well located on the five-acre tract that the State condemned. In 1972, Mrs. Baker and the Stephensons sold thirty acres of their adjoining land to Larry Best. There was also a good well located on that tract. The State, in a separate condemnation suit, was taking a part of the Best land, including the well. The Best well was described as a four-inch well capable of producing 175 gallons a minute.
The trial court overruled the State's motion in limine which sought to exclude information that Roy Stephenson used the water from the Best well to irrigate the Stephenson farm. The Stephensons were using the Best well under an oral lease agreement which would expire in thirty days. At the trial, the State renewed and kept alive its many objections to the repeated references by the condemnees to the availability of the water from the Best well. The basis for admitting the evidence was explained: "not as a measure or an item of damages but as an element of information . . . to guide the jury in arriving at the correct measure of damages." It is our opinion that the jury was led to believe that the condemnees were losing not just one well, but two wells, their own and the one they had already sold to Mr. Best.
Land has some value as dry land; it has a greater value as irrigated land. All of the Stephensons' acreage was dependent upon irrigation wells. There was evidence that the Stephenson well that was taken by the State in this action was not capable of fully watering all of the remainder tract of 107 acres. Several drilling efforts to find water on the remainder proved unsuccessful. Mr. Roy Stephenson testified that by use of the water drawn only from the Stephenson well, all of the remainder tract could be watered, but, in his words, "we had to crank way early to get water over but we covered awful light water . . . ." The information, however, that the jury received was that all of the Stephenson tract was good, productive, and fully irrigated land. The Stephensons testified and produced proof that they cultivated the entire remainder and irrigated all of it by the commingled water from both the Stephenson and Best wells. They proved that all of the remainder tract produced cotton, wheat, seed milo maize, regular milo maize, and sunflowers. They had to irrigate the crops as many as three times a year, and they produced two crops a year. The seed milo requires special cultivation and more water than ordinary milo. The Stephensons recounted the crop yields and prices they received from the sale of the irrigated crops for the entire 107 acres during 1973, 1974, and 1975. The information, therefore, which was admitted to guide...
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...1984). A party can preserve error to repeated offers of the same evidence by asking the court for a running objection. State v. Baker, 574 S.W.2d 63, 65 (Tex. 1978). We find three objections in the thirty pages of testimony. An objection to plaintiffs' counsel testifying through his questio......
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Mandril v. Kasishke
...of the case as to require reversal. See Texas v. Baker, 565 S.W.2d 77, 78 (Tex.Civ.App. Amarillo 1977), rev'd on other grounds, 574 S.W.2d 63 (Tex.1978). Accordingly, we overrule Mrs. Kasishke's first In her second cross-point, Mrs. Kasishke contends that, if we should reverse the judgment ......
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UPS v. Cengis Tasdemiroglu
...error when court permitted undisclosed witness to testify; party must object to testimony at trial to preserve error); State v. Baker, 574 S.W.2d 63, 65 (Tex. 1978) (running preserves error regarding repeated offer or admission of evidence); Hartford Accident & Indem. Co. v. McCardell, 369 ......
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McShane v. Bay Area Healthcare Group, Ltd.
...same evidence by asking the court for a running objection. Ramirez, 159 S.W.3d at 907; Duperier, 28 S.W.3d at 755 (citing State v. Baker, 574 S.W.2d 63, 65 (Tex.1978)). When applied to the facts of this case, as stated below, these precepts indicate that appellants failed to preserve their ......