White v. Mississippi Power Co.

• Citation: 252 Miss. 97,171 So.2d 312
• Decision Date: 25 January 1965
• Docket Number: No. 43263,43263
• Parties: Mrs. Corine Wilson WHITE et al. v. MISSISSIPPI POWER COMPANY.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 312

171 So.2d 312

252 Miss. 97

Mrs. Corine Wilson WHITE et al. v. MISSISSIPPI POWER COMPANY.

No. 43263.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Jan. 25, 1965.

Dunn & Singley, Meridian, for appellants.

Wilbourn, Lord & Williams, Meridian, for appellee.

ETHRIDGE, Justice.

Mississippi Power Company, appellee, instituted this eminent domain proceeding in the County Court of Lauderdale County, against Mrs. Corine Wilson White and Mrs. Etta Harrington Wilson, appellants, seeking to condemn an easement over certain lands owned by appellants for the purposes of constructing, maintaining and operating high voltage power lines. After trial before a jury, the county court awarded damages to appellants of $2,500, and that judgment was affirmed by the circuit court.

Appellants own two quarter-quarter sections of land in Lauderdale County. The two tracts (called forty acres, although they have slight variations in acreage) about one another in an east-west direction. The power company sought to condemn a perpetual easement of one hundred feet in width. Most of the power line right-of-way traverses the east forty, and cuts across only the southeast corner of the west forty. Exclusive of highway, the easement covers four and three-hundredths acres. The land is about one-fourth of a mile north of the city limits of Meridian. There were preexisting easements across this land, in Plantation Pipeline Company, Colonial Pipeline Company, and Southern Natural Gas Company, with underground pipelines, and also a road over the east part of the east forty, owned and maintained by Lauderdale County. The maximum distance of the Plantation right-of-way to the center line of the power line is fifty-two feet. The proposed right-of-way is for public necessity and use. We do not consider the assignment of error as to inadequacy of damages, since the case must be reversed and remanded because of eight erroneous instructions granted the power company.

Petitioner's instruction number 2 advised the jury that all property belonging to, it including the easement being taken, is assessed to petitioner by the state and county, at the same rate other property is assessed to other taxpayers, and that, after the easement has been taken, 'it will be the right of the defendants * * * to apply to the tax assessor * * * for an appropriate reduction in the assessment of their lands.' Assuming the easement taken would be assessed to the company, this instruction was misleading. Damages are measured by the before and after value of the land. It is pure speculation to assume that defendants could apply to the tax assessors and obtain a reduction in the assessment of their remaining land.

The company's instruction 3 stated that there were two pipeline easements across the land owned by Plantation, and others by Southern Natural Gas, Colonial Pipeline, and Lauderdale County, and in determining the fair market value of defendant's land before the taking, 'you must take into account; the pipeline easements and 'the increase or decrease in the value of defendant's land before the taking which results from' such easements, and the jury may not award to defendants any amount for damages resulting to their land from the...