Tennessee Gas & Transmission Co. v. Zirjacks, 12353
| Decision Date | 19 December 1951 |
| Docket Number | No. 12353,12353 |
| Citation | 244 S.W.2d 837 |
| Parties | TENNESSEE GAS & TRANSMISSION CO. v. ZIRJACKS. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Stofer, Proctor, Houchins & Anderson, Victoria, for appellant.
E. L. Dunlap, Victoria, for appellee.
This is an appeal from the County Court of Victoria County awarding appellee, Mrs. Julia Zirjacks, the sum of $1,324.72, for land condemned for pipe line purposes by appellant, Tennessee Gas and Transmission Company, and for incidental damage to adjacent lands owned by appellee. Mrs. Zirjacks owns a tract of 174.5 acres and the right-of-way condemned is a strip fifty feet wide running diagonally across the tract, occupying a total of 2.13 acres of land. The judgment of condemnation provided that the gas pipe line should be buried twenty-four inches beneath the surface of the soil and that appellee should retain all rights and property in and to said strip, except such rights as are necessary to the maintenance of the pipe line.
The sum of $1,324.72 was made up of two items: $31.95 for the 2.13 acres contained in the fifty-foot strip, and $1,292.77 for damages to the balance of the 174.5 acre tract. It is the award for damages to the balance of the tract that is the primary target of attack upon this appeal. It is based upon findings that the Zirjacks property, exclusive of the fifty-foot strip, was worth $75.00 per acre immediately before the strip was appropriated and worth only $67.50 per acre immediately afterwards.
This submission and the findings adduced as a result therefrom are attacked by numerous points and we shall not attempt to discuss them separately.
The judgment must fall for the primary reason that the evidence does not support the findings. We have carefully examined the statement of facts and find no specific testimony detailing in what ways the laying of the pipe line (thirty inches in diameter) twenty-four inches under the surface across the property within the fifty-foot strip would affect the value of the land lying outside the fifty-foot strip. There is no showing that a decline in market value, if any, would be uniform throughout that portion of the 174.5 acres not included in the strip, i. e., that lands remote from the strip would suffer the same as that adjacent to it. The jury based the damages upon a per acreage basis and must have determined that each acre was depreciated in value to the same extent, or the damage to the...
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Harrell v. F. H. Vahlsing, Inc.
...waters of the drainage ditch. All of their evidence, other than bald conclusions which must be rejected, Tennessee Gas & Transmission Co. v. Zirjacks, Tex.Civ.App., 244 S.W.2d 837, is based upon the assumption that a rightful possession of the strip occupied by the pipe would carry with it ......
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US EX REL. TVA v. Easement in Logan County, Ky.
...dictate that such damage could not be uniform and affect every acre of the farm in the same amount. In Tennessee Gas & Transmission Co. v. Zirjacks, 244 S.W.2d 837 (Tex.Civ.App.1951), the court held that it was not sufficient for a witness merely to say that the entire farm was worth so muc......
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State v. Scarborough, 7597
...To show error, the State cites and primarily relies upon three utility right-of-way cases, Tennessee Gas & Transmission Co., v. Zirjacks, (Tex.Civ.App., wr. dism.), 244 S.W.2d 837; City of Cedar Hill v. Wheeler, (Tex.Civ.App., no writ), 326 S.W.2d 236; Texas Electric Service Co. v. Vest, (T......
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Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co. v. Allison, 1459
...the relationship of the same to market value, and that they failed to so do as required by Tennessee Gas Transmission Co. v. Zirjacks, 244 S.W.2d 837 (Tex.Civ.App.-San Antonio 1951, writ dism'd) and Texas Electric Service Co. v. Wheeler, 550 S.W.2d 297, 299 (Tex.Civ.App.-Fort Worth 1976, wr......