It isn’t every day that an appellate court calls a condemnor’s argument in a multi-million dollar case “absurd,” but the Louisiana Court of Appeals did so in Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College v. 1732 Canal Street, Case No. 2012-CA-1370, opinion filed on June 19, 2013.
The Louisiana Court of Appeals just handed down an opinion affirming a trial court’s judgment on a jury award of $9,566,640. The condemnor’s deposit and opinion evidence was $4,500,000. The appellate court characterized the condemnor’s argument as “absurd,” holding that it presented no legal argument that would support the court’s disregard of the jury’s verdict. Condemnor evidently argued that the verdict should not stand because it was too far apart from the parties’ respective contentions, and therefore condemnor could not calculate how the jury arrived at its conclusion. The condemnor argued for an award of $4,500,000, and the condemnee for roughly $21.5 million.
The court held that as long as the verdict was within the range of the parties’ opinions, condemor’s argument was not a proper basis for vacating the jury verdict. Condemnor relied on case law in which the verdict was outside the range of value opinions, and therefore, on the facts in this case, it provided no legal basis for condemnor’s legal argument.