Andrew Richard Jones d/b/a “Jones Water System” brought a mulit-count complaint against Putnam County, Georgia and its contractor, Southern Trenching, Inc., after the county began competing against Jones to supply water to certain of Jones’s customers. The county filed a motion for partial summary judgment as to Counts IV inverse condemnation and V trespass of the complaint. The trial court granted the county’s motion and Jones appeals, contending the trial court erred by granting summary judgment on his inverse condemnation claim.1 The following undisputed facts are pertinent here. Jones operates a private water supply system that services residents of the Forest Lake Village Subdivision in Putnam County, Georgia. Jones and his predecessors, the original subdivision developers, were the exclusive providers of water to the residents of Forest Lake from the time it was constructed in the mid-1970′s until the county built a public water system servicing the area in 2005. The county placed its water lines in the same general location as the private water lines, within a 50 foot road rights-of-way, which the original developers had conveyed to the county at the time the subdivision was developed. That conveyance also reserved an easement to the developers in and through the rights-of-way for the purpose of installing a water system network and a right of ingress and egress for the purpose of maintaining the water supply system which is now operated by Jones. However, neither Jones nor the original developers had a no-compete agreement with the county or a franchise to supply water to the subdivision.
After construction of the county’s water lines, Jones brought suit against the county and its contractor, Southern Trenching, Inc., seeking damages in the amount of $13,873.70 and attorney fees for damage to his private water lines during the installation of the county’s lines Counts I-III. Jones’s complaint further stated claims against the county for inverse condemnation due to the substantial loss of business caused by the operation of the county’s competing water system Count IV and in the alternative, trespass, based on the county’s action in implementing the water system without his consent and without first acquiring adequate and sufficient property rights Count V.
