STATE OF FLORIDA, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, APPELLANT,
v.
MERRILL JEROME EDWARDS AND JUDITH L. EDWARDS, HIS WIFE, APPELLEE
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The Florida Department of Transportation appealed a judgment awarding inverse condemnation damages to property owners for alleged loss of highway access. The court reversed, holding that the property owners never possessed the right of access they claimed to have lost, as their deed explicitly limited access rights to a service road that was never constructed.
The court held that the Edwards had no right of access to lose because their deed clearly limited any access rights to a non-existent service road. An expert witness cannot create contractual rights that do not exist in the underlying deed documents.
[1] A property owner's right of access to a highway is determined by the language of the deed conveying property to the state.
[2] A deed conveying "all rights of ingress [and] egress" may limit the scope of access to specific areas or facilities.
Previewing 2 of 5 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“No right of access was lost to appellees in this case through the construction of the highway because appellees had not had any such right of access to lose.”
Establishes the central holding that the Edwards could not recover for loss of a right they never possessed.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceThe Edwards owned property adjacent to a highway constructed by the state. The state had acquired rights from the Edwards' predecessor in interest thr…
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LEHAN, Acting Chief Judge.
We reverse the final judgment awarding to appellees in this inverse condemnation action damages for loss of access to a highway.
We need not deal with the arguments made in this case as to whether a property owner’s loss of access is compensable without a partial physical taking of the property and whether a diminishment in the quality of access, as contrasted with a complete loss of access, may be compensable.
No right of access was lost to appellees in this case through the construction of the highway because appellees had not had any such right of access to lose. The deed to the state from appellees’ predecessor in interest had conveyed “all rights of ingress [and] egress ... between the grantors’ remaining property and any facility constructed on the above described property.” While that deed otherwise referred to a “right of access,” it clearly limited any such right to “access from [appellees’ predecessor’s] remaining property to any service road which may be constructed on the outer fifty feet of the right of way described above.” No such service road was shown to have been constructed. Also, it is clearly shown that appellees have access to that outer fifty feet.
Appellees argue that nonetheless the right of access which they contend they lost existed pursuant to the testimony of an expert witness who testified on behalf of the Department of Transportation and who described a right of appellees to access through the use of a “designated access point.” We do not agree. We do not so interpret the testimony of that witness. In any event, no such testimony could create a right which did not otherwise exist under the relevant documents. That, as appellees also argue, that expert was qualified as an expert “interpreter of the deed” would not entitle him to create provisions in a deed which did not exist.1
Reversed and remanded for entry of judgment in favor of appellant.
PARKER and PATTERSON, JJ., concur. . Appellees are not without access to the highway from their property. Apparently in order to have such access they have to drive approximately one mile further than they would have had to drive if they had such access at the "designated access point.”
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Sayfie v. State, 770 So. 2d 193 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000)…north to State Road 84. The other appellants were not named in any condemnation suit and filed actions for inverse condemnation. At an evidentiary hearing, DOT defended these actions on the basis that State, Department of Transportation v. Edwards, 545 So. 2d 479 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989), barred the owners’ claims. In Edwards, this court reversed the trial court’s award of damages to property owners for loss of access to State Road 84 because no right of access to the highway existed under the deed. The trial cour…