State ex rel. Department of Highways v. Haydel

REDMANN, Judge.

This appeal in an expropriation suit seeks increases in awards for one portion of land taken and for improvements. The main argument is that a district court is bound to fix and award a square-foot land value identical to that the court of appeal awarded in two cases of adjacent tracts.

We reject this argument as an impermissible attribution to conclusions of fact the binding status of conclusions of law. Trial courts may be obliged (even in Louisiana’s civil law system) to follow law declared by appellate courts, but facts in each case must be decided from the evidence in that…