Cost of Seizing a Home Goes Up

ALBANY, Ga. —  A jury has decided that a Georgia hospital is going to have to pay about five times what it offered if it wants to condemn a rental house where a frail, 93-year-old woman has lived for 26 years.

The jury said last week that Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital would have to buy the 60-year-old brick duplex for $200,000 -- it has been appraised at $50,000 to $60,000 -- and give the tenant $51,000 to help her move.

“It just proves that no one can assume absolute power over someone’s life without having to answer to the legal system,” said lawyer Eddy Meeks, who represented the tenant, Julia Lemon, and the home’s owner, Julie Montgomery.

Lemon, who walks with a cane, said she wished she could stay in the home.

“I lost my husband, a son, my daughter and a granddaughter while I was living here,” she said as she watched television from an easy chair in a bedroom. “So I’ve got a lot of memories, some happy, some sad.”

Phoebe, southwest Georgia’s largest hospital, pursued the property’s condemnation last year so it could expand a child development center for employees’ children. Phoebe officials said they might appeal the verdict.

Meeks said he might appeal the condemnation, which was approved by a court last year.

The jury verdict came the same week Gov. Sonny Perdue called for a state constitutional amendment to provide Georgia property owners with more protections from government seizure of their property.

He also announced a bill revamping the state’s eminent domain laws in response to an unpopular U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave governments power to take land for private development.