{
  "id": 1621214,
  "name": "ARKANSAS STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION v. Bessie C. LEWIS",
  "name_abbreviation": "Arkansas State Highway Commission v. Lewis",
  "decision_date": "1975-11-10",
  "docket_number": "75-139",
  "first_page": "836",
  "last_page": "838",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "258 Ark. 836"
    },
    {
      "type": "parallel",
      "cite": "529 S.W.2d 142"
    }
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  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ark.",
    "id": 8808,
    "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court"
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    "name_long": "Arkansas",
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      "cite": "239 Ark. 270",
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      "reporter": "Ark.",
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        "/ark/239/0270-01"
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    {
      "cite": "247 Ark. 157",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "Ark.",
      "case_ids": [
        1600551
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      "year": 1969,
      "opinion_index": 0,
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    {
      "cite": "239 Ark. 281",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "Ark.",
      "case_ids": [
        1730558
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      "weight": 2,
      "year": 1965,
      "opinion_index": 0,
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        "/ark/239/0281-01"
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T18:03:57.275817+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "Jones, J., not participating."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "ARKANSAS STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION v. Bessie C. LEWIS"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "George Rose Smith, Justice.\nWhen this condemnation action was filed in 1971 the appellee owned a 14.51-acre tract at the intersection of West Markham Street and Shackleford Road, in Little Rock. The highway department is taking all except 5.42 acres of that tract. The taking is partly for a controlled-access highway and partly for city streets, the landowner having a right of access to the latter. The jury fixed the landowner\u2019s compensation at $88,000. Several points for reversal are argued.\nThe highway department, in filing the complaint and declaration of taking, as amended, incorporated by reference the plans pursuant to which the highway improvement is to be constructed. See Ark. State Highway Commn. v. Wilmans, 239 Ark. 281, 388 S.W. 2d 916 (1965). At the beginning of the trial counsel for the condemnor conceded that the highway department was bound by the plans and then went on to say: \u201cWe will build the highway in accordance with the plans, and any judgment entered in this case can certainly specify in the event those plans were changed with respect to the control of access to this property, that this would constitute a new taking for which the landowner would be entitled to damages.\u201d\nDespite that assurance on the part of counsel the court gave the landowner\u2019s requested instruction number two. That instruction told the jury that the department was acquiring the property for \u201chighway purposes,\u201d which were then defined as including the eleven purposes enumerated in Ark. Stat. Ann. \u00a7 76-532 (Repl. 1957), all of which were then read to the jury. The enumeration included such patently extraneous purposes as rock quarries, gravel pits, borrow pits, shops, storage yards, drainage, stock trails, cattle passes, the elimination of grade crossings, and other matters not pertinent to the particular improvement to be constructed in this instance. We have recognized that the highway department, in taking the fee simple, has the power to devote the property to various purposes listed in the statute. Ark. State Highway Commn. v. Wallace, 247 Ark. 157, 444 S.W. 2d 685 (1969). It does not follow, however, that the jury should be presented with an exaggerated and misleading conception of the actual uses to which the tract being taken might be put in the future. The instruction was abstract and should not have been given. We cannot say with assurance that its effect upon the jury was not prejudicial.\nIn view of the necessity for a new trial two other points should be mentioned. First, the court was unduly strict in limiting the highway department\u2019s cross-examination of the witness Barnes. The great value of the right of cross-examination has been emphasized so frequently that we need not cite the cases. Counsel sought to show, by interrogating Barnes, that in other condemnation cases he had testified that the taking had not enhanced the value of the landowner\u2019s remaining land, which was thereafter promptly sold at prices in excess of the valuation given by the witness. Of course, the trial judge has much discretion in controlling cross-examination, so that the inquiry does not go too far afield. Even so, if counsel could bring out by Barnes\u2019s own admissions that his earlier testimony had proved to be wrong in a number of instances, his credibility might well have been seriously impaired. The effort should have been permitted.\nWe perceive no error in the court\u2019s rulings with respect to the direct examination of the landowner\u2019s witness Meeks. He testified to the diminution in the value of the landowner\u2019s remaining tract that would result from the highway department\u2019s predominant control of the part being taken. That type of damage was recognized in the Wallace case, supra, and in Ark. State Highway Commn. v. Kesner, 239 Ark. 270, 388 S.W. 2d 905 (1965). The court\u2019s explanation, arising in the heat of the trial, may not have been as precise as it might have been, but that is a matter that counsel may be expected to improve upon in their preparations for a second trial.\nReversed.\nJones, J., not participating.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "George Rose Smith, Justice."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Thomas B. Keys, Kenneth R. Brock, for appellant.",
      "Lester & Shults, for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "ARKANSAS STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION v. Bessie C. LEWIS\n75-139\n529 S.W. 2d 142\nOpinion delivered November 10, 1975\nThomas B. Keys, Kenneth R. Brock, for appellant.\nLester & Shults, for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0836-01",
  "first_page_order": 884,
  "last_page_order": 886
}