On May 30, 2003, Georgia Power Company filed a petition to condemn an easement 150 feet wide for an electric transmission line across three tracts of land containing approximately 800 acres and owned by Mosteller Mill in Bartow County.1 A special master appointed by the trial court conducted a hearing and received evidence concerning, among other things, the need for the easement and the value of the property involved. Following the hearing, the special master returned an award of $134,100 as compensation for the easement to be acquired and consequential damages to the remainder of Mosteller Mill’s property. Mosteller Mill filed a notice of appeal and exceptions to the special master award, seeking a review of rulings made by the special master as to certain non-value issues and seeking a jury trial on the value of the taking. The trial court held a hearing on the exceptions, denying ten of the thirteen exceptions. However, the trial court found that Georgia Power had failed to consider certain environmental and historical resources on Mosteller Mill’s property. The trial court set aside the special master award and set another special master hearing. Ten witnesses, nine of whom were qualified as experts, testified at the second special master hearing. Following the hearing, the special master entered a thirteen-page revised award, concluding as follows: While the routing of any 500 kV transmission line will likely affect certain environmental and historical resources, the Special Master finds that, based on the evidence and testimony presented in the second hearing, which was not presented in the first hearing, the Condemnor fairly and reasonably evaluated the effect of this line on these resources. The special master awarded $134,000 as compensation and recommended that the easement be condemned upon payment of that sum into the court’s registry. Mosteller Mill again filed a notice of appeal and exceptions to the revised award. The trial court conducted a hearing on Mosteller Mill’s exceptions to the revised award and denied the exceptions. The trial court specifically found that the maintenance clause in the condemnation petition did not constitute a vague and indefinite appropriation of the property because the “rights acquired must be exercised for the maintenance of the electric transmission lines.” According to the trial court, “Specification of particular activities necessary thereto do not constitute an excessive taking because there is the limitation that it must be necessary for the maintenance of the lines.” Mosteller Mill filed an interlocutory appeal in this Court, which we granted. For the reasons which follow, we reverse the trial court’s order.
1. Among other issues, the issue of first impression presented in this condemnation case is the extent to which a utility may, by perpetual easement, obtain the right to go onto non-specific and unidentified lands adjacent to its transmission line easement in order to “cut away, remove and dispose of dead, diseased, weak or leaning trees on lands adjacent thereto the condemned property which may now or hereafter, in falling, strike the conductors of said lines . . .” The parties describe this as a “danger tree” maintenance easement. Mosteller Mill’s position is that Georgia Power must either take an interest in the lands it may use for maintenance —and pay compensation for the land —or not condemn the land at all. We agree.
