Case Title: Pool Beach Association v. City of Biddeford

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 1974-11-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
Pool Beach Association v. City of Biddeford  328 A.2d 131 (1974) POOL BEACH ASSOCIATION et al. v. CITY OF BIDDEFORD et al. Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. November 14, 1974. *132 Pierce, Atwood, Scribner, Allen & Mc-Kusick by Vincent L. McKusick, Donald A. Fowler, Jr., Everett P. Ingalls, III, Portland, for plaintiffs. Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson by Barnett I. Shur, Eric F. Saunders, Portland, Gaulin & Kimmel by Edward F. Gaulin, Biddeford, for defendants. Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and DELAHANTY, JJ. WERNICK, Justice. On August 16, 1973 taxpayers in the City of Biddeford presented to the City's Municipal Officers a petition, authorized under 30 M.R.S.A. § 4001,[1] to have the City take particular beach real estate in Biddeford (hereinafter "the beach property") for use as a public park and playground. On August 20, 1973 the Biddeford City Council directed the Municipal Officers to initiate appropriate "condemnation" proceedings. Pursuant to express provisions of 30 M.R.S.A. § 4002,[2] the Municipal Officers gave *133 ". . . written notice of . . . intention to take . . . [the beach property described by metes and bounds] and the time and place of hearing, by posting . . . in 2 public places. . . and by publishing . . . in a newspaper . . .." After viewing the beach property and holding a hearing on September 5, 1973 (the date specified in the aforesaid "written notice"), and after a further hearing on September 17, 1973 (the date to which the original hearing had been adjourned), the Municipal Officers decided to "take" the beach property as "suitable" for a public park and playground; and they estimated $250,000.00 as the amount of damages to be paid to the owner in fee simple, Pool Beach Association, a Maine corporation. As required by 30 M.R.S.A. § 4002, the Municipal Officers then filed and recorded in the office of the Biddeford City Clerk a "return of their doings" in writing; and a copy of said "return", certified by the Biddeford City Clerk, was recorded in the York County Registry of Deeds. The instant civil action was commenced in the Superior Court (York County) on October 4, 1973, the plaintiffs being: (1) the corporation, Pool Beach Association, as the owner in fee simple of the beach property purportedly "taken"; (2) Dana W. Balch and Marion H. Balch, taxpayers of the City of Biddeford and members of the Pool Beach Association and who, as owners of a residence and other real estate abutting the beach property, have a "right of way" across it; (3) seven other persons who own real property situated in the City of Biddeford and are taxpayers of the City and members of the Pool Beach Association; and (4) ten persons, additional to all of the aforementioned, who are year-round inhabitants and taxpayers of the City of Biddeford. Originally designated as defendants were: (1) the Municipal Corporation, City of Biddeford; (2) Gilbert R. Boucher, then the Mayor of the City and, as such, one of its Municipal Officers; and (3) all of the persons who, as the then members of the Biddeford City Council, were, with the Mayor, the Municipal Officers of the City of Biddeford.[3] Invoking Superior Court jurisdiction by virtue of Rule 80B M.R.C.P., 14 M.R.S.A. §§ 5951-5963 (the Maine Declaratory Judgments Act) and 14 M.R.S.A. § 6051(12) (the so-called "10 taxpayers" statute), the complaint of plaintiffs sought, as one aspect of claimed relief, a declaratory adjudication that: "[t]he action of defendants in purporting to take the Beach Property . . . [is] null and void because . . . the statute under which defendants purported to act, namely, 30 M.R.S.A. §§ 4001-03, as amended, violates the Due Process Clauses of the Maine Constitution and *134 the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." Upon completion of all pleadings the parties, on April 3, 1974, filed a stipulation including an agreed statement of facts and an agreement that particular questions of law be submitted "on Report" for decision by this Court. The Agreed Statement stipulated in addition to the facts above delineated that: (1) all the persons who are the plaintiffs in the action, except Dana W. and Marion H. Balch, were given (by certified mail), and received, "notice" of the City's intention to take the beach property and the public hearings to be held thereon; and they were also sent (by certified mail), and received, a copy of the "return of their doings" which the Municipal Officers had filed and recorded; (2) Dana W. and Marion H. Balch, although not given "notice" by certified mail, acknowledge having "had actual prior notice of all proceedings relative to the taking of the Beach Property by the City of Biddeford"; and (3) "[m]embers of the public and representatives of the Pool Beach Association were present either in person or by counsel" at the public hearings and "publicly voiced their opinions both in favor of and against the proposed taking of the Beach property by the City of Biddeford." On April 2, 1974 the Justice presiding in the Superior Court made express findings that "this action involves questions of law of sufficient importance or doubt as to justify reporting this action . . ." and ". . . [a] decision thereof would in at least one alternative finally dispose of the action, . . ." Accordingly, pursuant to Rule 72(a) M. R.C.P., the Justice reported to this Court for its decision the question whether ". . . the action of Defendants in purporting to take the Beach Property. . . [is] null and void, because. . . [the] statute [30 M.R.S.A. §§ 4001-03], under which Defendants have purported to act, both on its face and as applied, violates the due process clauses of the Maine Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." Notwithstanding that the Justice's order of "report" refers to the "as applied" constitutionality of 30 M.R.S.A. §§ 4001-4003, all parties, in their briefs and at oral argument, have explicitly eliminated it from present consideration. They have confined the issue now to be decided to the correctness of plaintiffs' contention that there are "notice" deficiencies in 30 M.R.S.A. §§ 4001-4003 (hereinafter, "the statute")[4]*135 rendering it infirm facially i. e., unconstitutional in all its applications (see: United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17 , 80 S. Ct. 519, 4 L. Ed. 2d 524 (1960)); hence, the statute is to be treated as if expunged from the statute books with the consequence that the "taking" of the beach property by the Biddeford Municipal Officers is a nullity.[5] Plaintiffs base their position upon: (1) the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in Walker v. City of Hutchinson, 352 U.S. 112 , 77 S. Ct. 200, 1 L. Ed. 2d 178 (1956); and Schroeder v. City of New York, 371 U.S. 208 , 83 S. Ct. 279, 9 L. Ed. 2d 255 (1962) concerning procedural due process of law requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in conjunction with an operative import plaintiffs attribute to Wuchter v. Pizzutti, 276 U.S. 13 , 48 S. Ct. 259, 72 L. Ed. 446 (1928); and (2) the law of Maine as plaintiffs interpret the full purport of Peirce v. City of Bangor, 105 Me. 413, 74 A. 1039 (1909) that a judicial determination of just compensation validly perfected within a reasonable time is a condition precedent to the legality of an eminent domain "taking" of land. We may assume, arguendo, that in light of Hayford v. City of Bangor, 102 Me. 340, 66 A. 731 (1907) as recently evaluated in In re Bangor Hydro-Electric Company, Me., 314 A.2d 800 , 803, 804 (1974), the Legislature has intended in the instant statute that ". . . the determination of the suitability of the property for the particular public use and the extent to which the property must be taken to satisfy the exigency" (p. 803) shall be beyond the power of a Court to review (except as to whether the purpose is truly "public" or the municipal officers have committed some other independent abuse of power or have acted in bad faith). On this hypothesis, Walker and Schroeder have decided that even if due process of law may not require that the land owner be given personal notice of, and opportunity to be heard, concerning the "taking" as such Rindge Company v. County of Los Angeles, 262 U.S. 700 , 43 S. Ct. 689, 67 L. Ed. 1186 (1923); Bragg v. Weaver, 251 U.S. 57 , 40 S. Ct. 62, 64 L. Ed. 135 (1919), the facet of the eminent domain process concerned with the determination of compensation, since it involves private rights, cannot, consistently with federal due process of law mandates,[6] become final and binding as to record owners of legally protected interests in the land "taken" unless they have been given a legislatively prescribed "personal notice"[7] of the availability of, and their need to resort (for the full protection of their private rights) to, the proceedings legislatively delineated to achieve final and binding determination of compensation[8] with the possible qualification that if said owners have otherwise had timely "actual notice" *136 of such proceedings a "due process of law" infirmity will not be adjudicated.[9] We find it unnecessary presently to decide whether Walker and Schroeder, conjoined with such further implications as plaintiffs seek to derive from Wuchter v. Pizzutti and Peirce v. City of Bangor, dictate (as plaintiffs contend) that the "taking" authorizations of the instant statute be nullified. We assign plenary scope to the classic and powerful presumption that the Legislature intends its enactments to meet constitutional standards, and, therefore, we construe 30 M.R.S.A. § 4003 (as it incorporates by reference 23 M.R.S.A. § 3005 etc.) to require that the record owners of legally protected interests in the land "taken" be given the "personal notice" constitutionally necessary to allow the judicial proceedings therein delineated to produce a final and binding determination of the compensation to be paid. Plaintiffs seek to prevent such "saving" judicial construction of the statute by arguments that: (1) the present context is not precedentially controlled by this Court's decision in Michaud v. City of Bangor, 159 Me. 491, 196 A.2d 106 (1963) since the statute in Michaud upon its face offered personal notice as an alternative to notice by publication whereas the instant statute makes no mention of personal notice and (2) this Court should be guided by an 1886 decision of the Michigan Supreme Court in Knudinger v. City of Saginaw, 59 Mich. 355, 26 N.W. 634 (1886) in which the reasoning was that: "When, . . ., the statute specifies what notice shall be given, and does not include personal notice, it excludes that *137 method, and renders the statute invalid." (p. 637 of 26 N.W.) Hypothesizing, without need to decide, that the presence in the Michaud statute, and the omission here, of an express provision for personal notice as an alternative means of notice may prevent Michaud, by itself, from controlling the instant situation, we are satisfied that this Court's decisions in both Michaud and Wilson v. Wilson, 143 Me. 113, 56 A.2d 453 (1947) have aligned this Court in doctrinal opposition to the approach of Knudinger v. City of Saginaw, supra. In Wilson this Court confronted a statute the express language of which manifested a total lack of legislative concern for "notice" in any form the statute explicitly commanding that a person adjudicated to have legal obligation for the support of minor children, or alimony (or a specific sum in lieu thereof) be immediately subject to deprivation of personal liberty by an execution running against the body issued without prior notice of alleged default in the discharge of the obligation. Yet, this Court found sufficient amplitude and cogency in the presumption of the constitutionality of legislative enactments to require that the enactment involved in Wilson ". . . must . . . be interpreted to provide for the issuance of execution only after proper notice shall have been given." (p. 121 of 143 Me., p. 458 of 56 A.2d.) Wilson and Michaud are convincing attestations that in dealing with a statute under constitutional attack for a failure expressly to state requirements for personal notice to persons who are to suffer deprivations of liberty or property, this Court will interpret the statute as embodying prescriptions for "personal notice" (as constitutionally mandated) unless the express language of the statute plainly, unequivocally, and without need to invoke processes of inference establishes beyond rational doubt a legislative intention to dispense with such notice (notwithstanding that it may be constitutionally requisite). In Knudinger v. City of Saginaw, supra, the Michigan Court engaged in a process of negative implication to draw an inference (from that which was affirmatively stated in the statute) that the Legislature intended the exclusion of a constitutionally requisite method of notice. Knudinger v. City of Saginaw is thus fundamentally at odds with the plenary implementation of the presumption of constitutionality which, as revealed by Wilson v. Wilson and Michaud v. City of Bangor, is the policy of this Court.[10] We decide, therefore, that the provisions of 30 M.R.S.A. §§ 4001-4003 insofar as the Legislature (1) affirmatively specified in Section 4002 the giving of "written notice of . . . intention to take" to be accomplished by "posting" and "publishing" and (2) omitted in 30 M.R.S. A. § 4003 (as incorporating 23 M.R.S.A. § 3005 etc.) expressly to require that record owners of legally protected interests in the land "taken" be given personal notice adequate to alert them to the availability of, and their need to invoke (for the full protection of their private rights), the statutorily delineated judicial proceedings for the definitive and final determination of their damages fail to establish plainly, unequivocally, and without reliance upon inferential processes that, beyond rational doubt, the Maine Legislature truly intended to dispense with such personal notice (notwithstanding *138 that it be constitutionally necessary). Accordingly, we interpret 30 M.R.S.A. § 4003, (as it incorporates 23 M.R.S.A. § 3005 etc.) to require that the record owners of legally protected interests in the land "taken" be given "personal notice" of the occurrence of the events which render available, and necessary to be invoked for the full protection of their private rights, the judicial proceedings statutorily provided for the definitive and final determination of the damages resulting from the "taking"; and as to said record owners the 60 day period specified for the institution of said judicial proceedings commences only after such personal notice is given. With 30 M.R.S.A. §§ 4001-4003 thus interpreted, the constitutional attack herein levelled against that statute, in the facial aspects asserted by plaintiffs to nullify the "taking" of the beach property, fails. The entry is: It is adjudicated that: (1) 30 M.R.S.A. §§ 4001-4003, properly interpreted, requires that the record owners of legally protected interests in land "taken" be given personal notice of the occurrence of the events which render available, and necessary to be invoked for the full protection of private rights, the judicial proceedings delineated for the definitive and final determination of the damages caused by the "taking"; and as to said record owners the 60 day period specified for the institution of said judicial proceedings runs from the date said required personal notice is given; therefore, (2) the "notice" provisions of 30 M.R.S.A. §§ 4001-4003 sufficiently comply with the requirements of the "due process of law clauses" of the Constitution of Maine and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to avoid a facial infirmity nullifying the instant "taking" of the beach property. All Justices concurring.