VA · jury_instructions
Va. Model Jury Instr. Civ. No. 46.120
Landowner’s Duty to Mitigate Damages
A property owner has a duty to minimize any damages to his remaining property that will result
from the use which the (name of condemning authority) intends to make of the property taken.
Therefore, you may consider the reasonable expense of adjusting the remaining property to the
new conditions in determining the damage to the remaining property if such expenditures will
minimize damage that would otherwise occur. Such mitigation costs or expenses may only be
considered as elements bearing on the difference between values before and after the taking and
not as independent and distinct items of damages.
[For cases with adjustment expenses, the following may be substituted in lieu of the above
paragraph:]
A property owner has a duty to minimize any damages to his remaining property that will result
from the use which the [condemning authority] intends to make of the property taken. Therefore,
you may consider the reasonable expense of adjusting the remaining property to the new
conditions in determining the damage to the remaining property if such expenditures will minimize
damage that would otherwise occur.
However, such adjustment expenses are not the measure of damages to the remaining property
and cannot be recovered specifically. Nor can the sum of all adjustment expenses be the proper
measure of damages. Adjustment expenses are merely a factor of evaluation. The true test of
damages to the remaining property not taken is the difference in value before and immediately
after the taking, less enhancement, if any, resulting from the take.
History
Virginia Model Jury Instructions – Civil, Release 26, April 2026. The unannotated set, posted by the Supreme Court of Virginia at vacourts.gov; the book states that it is made available with the permission of the publisher, Matthew Bender & Company, Inc.
Provenance
- Source
- vacourts.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-11
- Edition
- civ-2026-04-01
- Content hash
1937ae4d244fbf64016cbb8f41f26e70a0fe6500ca120076c15254642e3c5dc7
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