Property owner brought action against Department of Transportation claiming inverse condemnation and constitutional torts. Following a jury trial, the Circuit Court entered judgment for property owner in the amount of $36,527, and the Department appealed.
The Court of Appeals held that:
- Evidence was sufficient to support a finding that Department’s exercise of its power of eminent domain constituted a physical taking that extended for a period of 16 months;
- The Circuit Court was within its authority to allow property owner’s expert to testify as to his opinion of the interest rate property owner could expect to recover on an investment in rental property; and
- The more specific statute that expressed a landowner’s ability to receive attorney fees in an inverse condemnation action applied to property owner’s claim.
Evidence was sufficient to support a finding that bridge construction and related activities that blocked property owner’s easement for access to public road constituted an exercise of the Department of Transportation’s eminent domain powers, rather than a separate and distinct police power, and thus, constituted a “physical taking” that existed for a period of 16 months. Property owner testified and provided pictures of constant disturbance and blockage across the access point to public road, further testified that when contractors were asked to move their equipment, other contractors would almost immediately move different equipment in the easement for access, and that his tenant left prior the termination of his lease because of the Department’s taking.
The more specific statute that expressly addressed a landowner’s ability to receive attorney’s fees and costs as a result of prevailing in an inverse condemnation case, rather than the general statute that addressed the award of attorney fees to a prevailing landowner in a condemnation action, applied to property owner. By applying the prevailing party language of the condemnation statute to an inverse condemnation case would have placed a heavier burden on property owner, a result not intended by the legislature.