Trustees of Wade Baptist Church v. Mississippi State Highway Commission, 53075
| Decision Date | 24 March 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 53075,53075 |
| Parties | TRUSTEES OF WADE BAPTIST CHURCH, et al. v. MISSISSIPPI STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Cumbest, Cumbest & Hunter, David O. McCormick, Pascagoula, for appellants.
Jones, Maples & Lomax, F. Gerald Maples, Lowry M. Lomax, Pascagoula, for appellee.
Before SUGG, P. J., and BROOM and BOWLING, JJ.
This is an eminent domain case that originated in a Special Court of Eminent Domain in Jackson County. The landowner disagreeing with the jury's verdict appeals and propounds several alleged reversible errors. We need to consider only one assignment of error as it requires a reversal of the cause for a new trial. This assignment is:
THE COURT ERRED AND ABUSED ITS DISCRETION IN REFUSING TO LET MR. BOB STEPHENS TESTIFY AS AN EXPERT IN THE FIELD OF APPRAISING PROPERTY THUS PREJUDICING THE RIGHTS OF THE LANDOWNER BY TAKING PROPERTY WITHOUT JUST COMPENSATION.
The Wade Baptist Church is located on the northwest corner of the intersection of highways numbered 63 and 614. The taking consisted of property and access fronting on both highways. For the purposes of this opinion, it is not necessary for us to go into further detail as to the remaining testimony regarding the proper amount owed the church. The highway commission introduced one expert witness. The church introduced one of the three member Board of Trustees. The testimony of these two witnesses, as is usually the case, was not the same regarding values. The church attempted to introduce Mr. Bob Stephens as an independent witness; however, the trial judge sustained appellee's objection to testimony from Mr. Stephens, the court stating that he did not have the necessary qualifications. We therefore are limited to a discussion of Mr. Stephens' qualifications and whether or not it is reversible error that his testimony was not permitted to be heard by the jury.
Mr. Stephens first testified that he had been a licensed real estate appraiser since 1972 at the direction of the proper state agency; however, there is no such title in the state, but he had a broker's license from the Mississippi board which authorized such appraisal work. He was a member of the Jackson County Homebuilder's Association and Jackson County Board of Realtors. He served as president of Jackson County Homebuilder's Association. He was at one time president of the Gulfport Board of Realtors and was on the Board of Directors of the state association. He is a member of the National Homebuilders Association and the National Board of Realtors. He has been in the real estate business approximately 16 years. He has done appraisal work "most of this time, but not on a full-time basis." He was manager for Reid-McGee Mortgage Company (now Cameron-Brown, Inc.) for nine years and appraised property on which that company made loans. He had done appraisal work for Hancock Mortgage Company, Coast Federal Savings & Loan, Southern Savings and Loan, First Southern Savings Association of Gulfport, Depositors' Savings of Jackson, Gulfport National Bank, Kimbrough Investment Company, Aetna Insurance Company, Merrill Lynch Company, Bailey Mortgage Company, First National Bank of the South, Wortman and Mann, Deposit Guaranty Mortgage Company, Veterans' Administration, Federal Housing Association, Federal National Mortgage Association and Jackson County.
Stephens received a B. S. degree from the University of Southern Mississippi. He had performed both residential and commercial appraisals with the majority being residential. At the time of the trial he was making about fifty appraisals each month. He attended and completed an appraisal course with the SREA, a society of real estate appraisers. For two and one-half years prior to the time of the trial he had done full-time appraisal work and part-time for all the years he had been in the real estate business and working with the above set out mortgage loan companies. Stephens had periodically attended special seminars and courses of appraisals held by FHA and VA. He is a member of the National Association of Real Estate Boards. In connection with the courses he had...
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Trustees of Wade Baptist Church v. Mississippi State Highway Com'n
...had erroneously precluded the testimony of Wade Baptist's expert witness, Bob Stephens. See Trustees of Wade Baptist Church v. Mississippi State Highway Commission, 411 So.2d 761, 763 (Miss.1982). On remand the case was heard de novo in the Special Court of Eminent Domain of Jackson County ......
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State Highway Com'n of Mississippi v. Smith
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