AMI 2009 Fair Market Value—Owner's Testimony
Ark. Model Jury Instr., Civil AMI 2009
Arkansas Model Jury Instructions-Civil
December 2023 Update
Chapter 20. Eminent Domain
AMI 2009 Fair Market Value—Owner's Testimony
The law permits (the property owner), as the owner of the property taken in this condemnation proceeding, to testify as to the fair market value of [his][her][its] property immediately before and immediately after the date of taking. The testimony of a property owner as to value is to be weighed and considered by you the same as that of any other witness expressing an opinion of the fair market value of the property both before and after the date of the taking. That is to say, if you should decide that the reasons given in support of a property owner's opinion as to the fair market value has no fair or logical basis of support for it, you may reject that opinion; or you may give it any weight you may think it deserves.
COMMENT
This instruction is modeled after O'Malley, Grenig and Lee, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions § 154:58 (6th ed.), and it is based on Arkansas State Highway Commission v. Taylor, 269 Ark. 458, 602 S.W.2d 657 (1980); Arkansas State Highway Commission v. Darr, 246 Ark. 204, 437 S.W.2d 463 (1969); and Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corp. v. Burton, 10 Ark. App. 419, 664 S.W.2d 894 (1984).
In Taylor, the Court held that a landowner's opinion as to the value of his land is admissible in evidence whether he knows anything about land market values in the area or not. His value opinion “is admissible [in evidence] simply because he owns the land and is qualified to state an opinion as to the value of what he owns.” 269 Ark. at 463, 602 S.W.2d at 660. But such opinion testimony, either by the landowner or by his value witnesses, may be stricken on motion if there is no fair or logical basis for its support. Id.
A landowner's testimony should have been stricken when it was not grounded in evidence of market value but was instead “based solely on his ‘feeling’ or what he would have asked for the land and not on any facts or figures [grounded in evidence of market value].” Ark. State Highway Comm'n v. Frisby, 329 Ark. 506, 510, 951 S.W.2d 305, 307 (1997).
© 2023 Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Jury Instructions-Civil
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