Adding a judicial wrinkle to the debate over eminent domain, the Georgia Court of Appeals has thrown out a $1 million award won by a couple who said that Georgia Power had not offered them enough compensation for running a power line supported by two large towers through their mountain bed-and-breakfast property.

The appeals court cases, decided Jan. 24, centered on Douglas W. and Joan C. Jones, an Atlanta couple who have operated the Woodruff Inn, a downtown Atlanta bed-and-breakfast inn, since 1989. They wanted to open a bed-and-breakfast in North Georgia but claimed their plans were stymied when the power company notified them in the spring of 2001 that it intended to seek an easement across their land for the placement of towers and power lines.

At a September 2004 trial, the Joneses claimed that the power lines and towers would interfere with their mountaintop view and ruined their plans for the bed-and-breakfast, according to the appellate court opinion. The couple asked the jury for $450,000 for the loss of the bed-and-breakfast plus $1,319,000 in compensation for the condemned tract of land and consequential damages to the remaining property. After three hours of deliberation, the jury awarded the Joneses $1,003,500 in damages.

Georgia Power appealed, and the panel rejected the Joneses' argument that they did not need to have an "established" business to recover business losses.

The Joneses' attorney, Donald C. Evans Jr. of Vaughan & Evans, said that his clients have asked the Supreme Court of Georgia to hear the case. "We have every expectation that the Supreme Court will hear from us," said Evans, "but if we do have to retry it, we hope that next time the jury's verdict will not be quite so low."