Here's an interesting one from the Georgia Supreme Court. In Dillard Land Investments, LLC v. Fulton County, No. S13G1582 (July 11, 2014), the court held that a condemning agency could not voluntarily dismiss an eminent domain action, after a special master has entered a just compensation award but before the agency has paid the award into the court.
Georgia eminent domain can take one of three tracks. There's the "assessors method," the quick take, and the "special master method." The Dillard case involved the latter, under which the court appoints a master to quickly hold a hearing, after which the master determines the just compensation owed the property owners and files her award with the court. Anyone dissatisfied with the award may appeal for a de novo jury trial. If no appeal is filed, the court enters a judgment. The issue in the case was whether the condemnor could voluntarily (and without the court's or the property owner's consent), dismiss the taking after the master's award and after the court entered judgment.
The Court of Appeals agreed with the County that it could dismiss. The Supreme Court unanimously reversed, concluding that the master's award is the equivalent of a verdict, and by then, it is too late for the condemnor to walk away:
The principle expressed in our general voluntary dismissal cases accords with and undergirds the cases refusing to allow the unilateral voluntary dismissal of a condemnation action after the assessors have rendered their value decision as the fact-finders in the action. See, e.g., Thomas, 169 Ga. at 272; Mercer, 123 Ga. App. at 42. And the principle applies with equal force to condemnation actions under the special master method, once the special master has rendered his value decision as the fact-finder in the action – a decision on the merits of the case that the superior court has no discretion to alter. See OCGA § 22-2-111. The plaintiff condemnor may voluntarily dismiss its action without the agreement of the condemnee or the permission of the court before the special master announces his value award, even if the result appears preordained from what happened at the valuation hearing or from other developments in the case. See Lakes, 264 Ga. at 478. After the special master has announced his award, the condemnor may appeal for a de novo jury trial on value or file non-value objections in the superior court – neither of which the County did here. What the condemnor may not do, once it knows how the key issue in its case will be resolved – the value the special master, and necessarily then the court, will place on the property being condemned – is to “‘deprive the opposite party of the victory thus gained’” by voluntarily dismissing the action unilaterally and without prejudice, allowing the condemnor to re-litigate the same issue in a newly filed action in hopes of a better result. See Cooper, 233 Ga. at 389 (citation omitted).
Slip op. at 13-14.
The bottom line "relevant event" is "when the condemnor knows what the value award will be, and that even occured in this case before the County moved to dismiss its action." Slip op. at 17. What this really prevents is the condemnor sandbagging -- seeing if it gets a favorable result from the master, and if not, dismissing. The court concluded that the remedy for a condemnor dissatisfied with a master's valuation is not to dismiss, but to appeal: "[o]nce the special master announces his award, if the condemnor believes that the value placed on the property is too high, the only remedy is to appeal the award for a de novo jury determination of value under OCGA § 22-2-112, a remedy that the County did not pursue in this case." Slip op. at 17.
Our Owners' Counsel of America colleague Charles Ruffin filed an amicus brief in support of the property owners, which argued that the process permitted by the Court of Appeals allowed the condemnor a "do over," which is "grossly unfair to Georgia's property owners."
Dillard Land Investments, LLC v. Fulton County, No. S13G1582 (Ga. July 11, 2014)
