BEVERLY COLEMAN, SONYA MAY, v. CITY OF PIKEVILLE
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
RENDERED: June 11, 1999; 2:00 p.m.
TO BE PUBLISHED
C ommonwealth O f K entucky
C ourt O f A ppeals
NO.
1997-CA-003145-MR
BEVERLY COLEMAN, SONYA MAY,
and RACINE DAMRON
APPELLANTS
APPEAL FROM PIKE CIRCUIT COURT
HONORABLE EDDY COLEMAN, JUDGE
ACTION NO. 93-CI-01593
v.
CITY OF PIKEVILLE
APPELLEE
OPINION
AFFIRMING
* * * * * * * * * *
BEFORE:
BUCKINGHAM, COMBS, and MCANULTY, Judges.
BUCKINGHAM, JUDGE.
Appellants, Beverly Coleman, Sonya May, and
Racine Damron, appeal from a judgment of the Pike Circuit Court
in favor of Appellee, City of Pikeville (the City).
We affirm.
In 1984, the Pikeville Urban Renewal and Community
Development Agency (PURCDA) sent a letter to Ola Goff, the
appellants’ predecessor in interest to the subject real property,
offering to purchase the 1.348-acre tract.1
The letter
apparently stated that if Goff did not agree to the price
1
Neither the letter nor a copy of it is in the trial court
record which has been provided to us.
offered, the property would then be condemned pursuant to the
Eminent Domain Act of Kentucky found in Kentucky Revised Statutes
(KRS) 416.540 through 416.680.
PURCDA desired to purchase the
property as a part of the Riverfill Development Plan which
involved a rerouting of a fork of the Big Sandy River, U.S.
Highway 23, and a railroad out of the City’s downtown commercial
area.
Apparently in response to the letter and its underlying
threat of condemnation, Goff and others who owned interests in
the property sold it to PURCDA on October 1, 1994.2
Sixty-six
thousand cubic yards of fill material was subsequently placed on
the property, and water lines and a roadway were thereafter
constructed over it.
In 1990, PURCDA was dissolved by the City, and it
deeded all property owned by it to the City prior to its
dissolution.
In 1992 and 1993, the appellants notified the City
that they were interested in repurchasing the property for the
same amount PURCDA had paid for it.
The City refused to sell the
property to the appellants and made plans to sell it at public
auction.
The appellants then filed a complaint in the Pike
Circuit Court and obtained an injunction to prevent the City from
disposing of the property until the respective rights of the
parties could be determined.
They now contend that they are
entitled to repurchase the property pursuant to KRS 416.670(1)
which states as follows:
2
We have not reviewed the contents of the deed, as it was
not provided in the record.
-2-
Development shall be started on any property
which has been acquired through condemnation
within a period of eight (8) years from the
date of the deed to the condemnor or the date
on which the condemnor took possession,
whichever is earlier, for the purpose for
which it was condemned. The failure of the
condemnor to so begin development shall
entitle the current landowner to repurchase
the property at the price the condemnor paid
to the landowner for the property. The
current owner of the land from which the
condemned land was taken may reacquire the
land as aforementioned.
The appellants argue that they are entitled to repurchase the
property at the price paid by PURCDA in 1984 because development
was not started on the property within eight years from the date
of the deed.
They contend that “[t]he only thing that had been
done to the property, in the statutory eight (8) year period,
that could even be construed as development was the dumping of
dirt on it.”
The case was assigned to Judge Charles E. Lowe, Jr., in
Division No. II of the Pike Circuit Court, and the case was tried
before the court without a jury on April 22, 1996.
Post-trial
briefs were filed by the parties as directed by Judge Lowe, but
on February 26, 1997, Judge Lowe signed an order transferring the
case to Division No. I of the Pike Circuit Court for the reason
that “the undersign’s Bench Clerk is the Daughter-In-Law of one
of the Plaintiff’s herein . . . .”
Various motions were filed by the parties, and an order
was entered assigning a hearing on the motions for April 25,
1997, before Judge Eddy Coleman, the Division No. I judge.
We
see no indication in the record that a hearing was held on that
day, but on November 10, 1997, over six months later, a findings
-3-
of fact, conclusions of law, and judgment was entered by Judge
Coleman.
In this judgment, Judge Coleman noted that considerable
fill material had been placed on the property within the eightyear period from the date of the deed and that the appellants
were not entitled to repurchase the property because “[t]he
statute ends the right of redemption when development begins or
starts for situations like the present one because the subject
property is simply not the same property that was acquired by the
Ola Goff deed.”3
Judge Coleman also held that the appellants
were not entitled to repurchase the property because the property
was not condemned but was sold pursuant to an agreement, and he
stated that “KRS 416.670 is a part of the procedure used when
there is not an agreement between the property owner and the
condemnor.
In this action the parties agreed.
. . .
Because
they reached an agreement[,] KRS 416.670(1) does not apply.”
This appeal followed.
The appellants’ first argument is that the trial court
erred in its determination that no development was started on the
property within eight years from the date of the deed.
They
state that “the only change . . . is that it has been filled with
dirt.”
On the other hand, the City argues that the property was
transformed with the fill material as well as the installation of
utilities and the roadway within the eight-year period.
We hold
that the trial court’s determination, that the dumping of 66,000
cubic feet of fill material on the 1.348 acres of property
3
Judge Coleman also stated that “[t]he condition of the
subject property was remarkably changed at public expense.”
-4-
constitutes the starting of development within the meaning of KRS
416.670(1), is not clearly erroneous.
CR 52.01; Owens-Corning
Fiberglass Corp. v. Golightly, Ky., 976 S.W.2d 409, 414 (1998).
The appellants also contend that even if the fill
material is considered to be the start of development, such
development was abandoned in 1990 when PURCDA was dissolved by
the City.
They cite no authority, however, that would allow them
to repurchase the property in the event the development was
subsequently abandoned, and the statute requires only that the
development be started within the eight-year period.
We agree
with the City that the dissolution of PURCDA is irrelevant to a
determination of whether the appellants had redemption rights
under the statute.
The appellants’ second argument is that the trial court
erred in holding that the right to repurchase does not exist when
the property was not obtained through condemnation.
While they
admit that the property was not condemned, they contend that the
statute should apply when the property is acquired under threat
of condemnation.
The appellants do not cite any authority to
support their argument, however.
We conclude that the trial court was correct in its
determination that KRS 416.670(1) was not applicable since the
property was not condemned but was sold by agreement.
The
statute clearly applies only to property “acquired through
condemnation.”
While the statute apparently has not been subject
to interpretation by Kentucky courts on this issue, we agree with
the trial court’s interpretation.
-5-
However, see Fuddy Duddy’s v.
State of Nevada Dept. of Transportation, 950 P.2d 773, 775
(1997), where the Nevada Supreme Court held that “a purchase made
under the threat of condemnation is the same as a judicial
condemnation.”
The appellants’ last argument is that the City does not
have standing to assert rights granted to PURCDA.
They cite no
authority to support their argument, and we fail to see how this
issue would affect their right to repurchase the property when
they are otherwise unable to do so for the aforementioned
reasons.
The judgment of the Pike Circuit Court is affirmed.
ALL CONCUR.
BRIEF FOR APPELLANT:
BRIEF FOR APPELLEE:
Herman W. Lester
Pikeville, KY
James R. Cox
Louisville, KY
Russell H. Davis, Jr.
Pikeville, KY
-6-
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.