Waters v. DeKalb County

Candler, Justice.

(After stating the foregoing facts.) Article I, Section III, Paragraph I, of our Constitution of 1945 (Code, Ann., § 2-301) emphatically declares that “private property shall not be taken, or damaged, for public purposes, without just and adequate compensation being first paid.” The same provision appeared in the Constitution of 1877. Accordingly, if private property is taken or damaged for public purposes, even by the prudent and proper exercise of a power conferred by statute, the owner thereof is entitled to just and adequate compensation for the taking or the damaging…