Title: People Ex Rel. Director of Finance v. YWCA

State: illinois

Issuer: Illinois Supreme Court

Document:

86 Ill. 2d 219 (1981)
427 N.E.2d 70
THE PEOPLE ex rel. DIRECTOR OF FINANCE, Appellee,
v.
YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF SPRINGFIELD et al., Appellants.
No. 53929.

Supreme Court of Illinois.
Opinion filed September 30, 1981.
*220 *221 *222 Barber, Hall, Segatto & Hoffee, of Springfield (Henry R. Barber, Carl O. Hoffee, and Richard C. Edwards, of counsel), for appellant Young Women's Christian Association of Springfield.
Tyrone C. Fahner, Attorney General, of Springfield (Roy E. Frazier, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, and Raymond L. Terrell and Robert B. Powers, Special Assistant Attorneys General, of counsel), for appellee.
Reversed and remanded.
MR. JUSTICE UNDERWOOD delivered the opinion of the court:
The Director of Finance (hereafter the State), on behalf of the Capital Development Board (hereafter CDB), filed a petition on August 26, 1976, seeking to condemn, for construction of a "courts complex" building for the use of the Fourth District Appellate Court, Sangamon County Circuit Court and a law school or paralegal training program, an entire block in downtown Springfield, including improved property at the southeast corner of that block, belonging to the Young Women's Christian Association of Springfield (YWCA). The State filed a November 1 motion in limine to prohibit the YWCA from introducing evidence of replacement or reconstruction costs relevant under the *223 YWCA theory that the property was "special use" property entitled to unusual valuation rules. On November 3 the YWCA filed a traverse and motion to dismiss, denied September 7, 1977. Pursuant to our Rule 308 (58 Ill.2d R. 308) the circuit court certified three valuation questions raised by the motion in limine, and those questions were decided by this court in People ex rel. Director of Finance v. YWCA (1979), 74 Ill. 2d 561. Following that decision, a jury trial was held and a judgment fixing total compensation to be paid the YWCA at $1,135,960 was entered. From this final judgment the YWCA appealed and the case was transferred to this court pursuant to our Rule 302(b) (73 Ill.2d R. 302(b)).
An appropriation for a courts complex was first made in 1974. The Governor, on November 6, 1975, gave, as required by section 51 of the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 127, par. 51), his consent to acquisition of the subject property. Discussions among potential users of the complex resulted in a December 1975 program statement containing the following certificate:
This certificate was signed by Judge J. Waldo Ackerman on behalf of the Sangamon County circuit court.
The only indication that members of the Sangamon County Board (hereafter county board) were aware of such discussions is a letter dated October 1, 1974, from the chairman of the county board, which stated:
An internal CDB memo dated April 2, 1976, from Waler Ross, the then project manager, indicates that this initial contact was not followed by continued involvement of the county board:
The memo concluded that Ross would suggest that the CDB architects "cool it" until the CDB could "get our own house in order." The CDB passed a resolution on June 10, 1976, which read in part:
The petition for condemnation, filed August 27, 1976, stated:
A September 7, 1976, letter from the Sangamon County clerk indicates that, as of that date, no resolution affecting "in any way" the location of the Sangamon County circuit court had been passed by the county board. The YWCA traverse and motion to dismiss filed November 3, 1976, stated in part:
On January 11, 1977, a resolution, suggested in part by CDB staff members, was approved by the county board. It stated:
Four witnesses testified for the State at the hearing on the motion to dismiss. Judge Roy O. Gulley, Administrative Director of the Illinois Courts, testified concerning the *228 Fourth District Appellate Court's involvement in the project, noting in passing that the Sangamon County circuit court had a new, modern, air-conditioned courthouse building, one of the 20 or 25 newest circuit court facilities in the State.
Daniel Pramlet, a land-acquisition official for the CDB, testified that the CDB did believe that there had to be a consensus of the county board, although it did not believe that consensus need be in writing. The witness testified that there was neither a formal written agreement concerning the rent to be charged nor any county-board-approved program statement, although over 50% of the complex's "net square footage" would be used by the circuit court.
Jerry Hess, a planning supervisor for the CDB, testified that more than half of the usable floor space of the complex would be occupied by the circuit court. He stated that the CDB was not to determine need for the building in the first place, and had not done any study of the adequacy of the circuit court's 12-year-old building, or of the court buildings throughout Illinois. After his work on the project, however, the witness had personally felt that the project would be beneficial to the State. The witness testified that, if the CDB had tried to construct the appellate court and legal education facilities separately from the circuit court facilities, "it [the project] wouldn't have worked."
Dasol Mashaka, the project manager for the CDB at the time of the hearing on the motion to dismiss, testified that the Sangamon County circuit court would be the single largest use of the building, approximately 50%, that the size of the tract required was directly related to the size of the building, and that the circuit court would make the greatest demand on parking facilities. The witness admitted that he had seen the absence of a use agreement with the county board as a potential barrier. A couple of weeks prior to the January 11, 1977, county board meeting, he had participated in a discussion with county board members concerning *229 what should be stated in the county board resolution. The witness also admitted making the following statements at the January 11 county board meeting:
In stating that the CDB had not done a "needs study," the witness made an isolated reference to the existence of one done by either the county board or the circuit court itself "independent of the project," but neither that study, nor its conclusions, nor any information about it was introduced in evidence. After the witness had stated several times that the CDB did not make a study of need for the complex and that it does not make such determinations, the following exchange between the attorney for the State, Raymond Terrell, and his witness, took place:
The witness also testified that the CDB "established" that those needs were "valid."
Later the witness acknowledged that the CDB had not considered whether the building presently occupied by the circuit court adequately serves the needs of the circuit court:
The witness believed that the State would agree to permit the circuit court to occupy the complex, in exchange for paying its pro rata share of costs, but that no final agreement could be made until the CDB had the final specifications for the complex.
The State has asked, without any objection by the YWCA, that judicial notice be taken of the fact that the State now has title to the entire block sought, with the exception of the YWCA property, consisting of roughly two lots in the southeast corner of the block. The fact that we do so does not imply that we regard our decision in this case as affecting in any way the already acquired title to the non-YWCA land. The YWCA asks this court to take judicial notice of the fact that the county board on April 14, 1981, passed a resolution stating:
The United States Supreme Court in United States v. Carmack (1947), 329 U.S. 230, 237-38, 91 L. Ed. 209, 215, *232 67 S. Ct. 252, 255, indicated that the power of eminent domain is itself the outgrowth of political necessity, quoting Mr. Justice Strong's words in Kohl v. United States (1876), 91 U.S. 367, 371-72, 23 L. Ed. 449, 451:
Article I, section 15, of our constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 15) provides:
This court stated of the corresponding provision of the 1870 Constitution in Department of Public Works & Buildings v. Ryan (1934), 357 Ill. 150, 154-55:
The Director of Finance filed this case after an appropriation and the consent of the Governor as provided in section 51 of the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 127, par. 51), which reads in part:
The legislature, of course, cannot, by delegating the power of eminent domain, dispense with constitutional requirements restricting its use, including the requirement of "necessity." In a condemnation action at least four issues concerning necessity may be readily distinguished: (1) whether the declared public use is necessary, (2) whether some property of the general type being condemned is necessary to serve the declared public use, (3) whether the property condemned is necessary as opposed to neighboring or similar properties, and (4) whether it is necessary to acquire the subject property by eminent domain as opposed to voluntary sale or lease. In the present case we consider only the second issue.
The inquiry of Illinois courts into the existence of necessity in an eminent domain case is limited but crucial. As this court wrote in City of Chicago v. Vaccarro (1951), 408 Ill. 587, 597:
See also United States v. Carmack (1946), 329 U.S. 230, 243-46, 91 L. Ed. 209, 218-20, 67 S. Ct. 252, 258-60.
In City of Chicago v. Lehmann (1914), 262 Ill. 468, 470-71, this court stated:
In Trustees of Schools v. First National Bank (1971), 49 Ill. 2d 408, this rule was reaffirmed and it was decided that a recitation of necessity contained in a resolution of the proper body would make out a prima facie case of necessity:
It has also been held that an eminent domain petition is properly dismissed where no formal resolution embodying a finding of necessity had, on the date of filing of the petition, been adopted, even though a subsequently adopted resolution referred to action taken at an executive meeting of the responsible body prior to the filing of the petition. (Goldman v. Moore (1966), 35 Ill. 2d 450.) The court there emphasized the importance of the legislative finding of necessity:
The Sangamon County Board is by statute charged with the responsibility of providing a suitable courthouse for the Sangamon County circuit court. Section 26 of "An Act to revise the law in relation to counties" (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 34, par. 432) states:
The county board's duty to provide a courthouse is imperative. (County of Mercer v. Wolff (1908), 237 Ill. 74; see also People ex rel. Goodman v. Wabash R.R. Co. (1946), 395 Ill. 2d 520.) In the present case it is clear that, as of the date of the filing of the petition to condemn, no formal determination of necessity had been made by the county board. Even the resolution passed January 11, 1977, over four months after the filing of this action, and over two months after the filing of the motion to dismiss, merely indicated an intent to negotiate an agreement with the State at some indefinite future date, not a finding that it was *238 necessary that the circuit court be provided with new facilities. CDB employees' testimony and the January 11 county board resolution indicated a hope of negotiating an agreement to lease the facility based on "pro rata" sharing of "costs," but even the method of such calculation was indefinite. Although the county board resolution referred to the program statement certificate signed by a representaive of the circuit court, that certificate only indicated that the facilities described in the program statement would be sufficient for the projected activities of the circuit court through 1980, not that those new facilities would be needed in order to accommodate those activities.
Nor can the June 10, 1976, resolution of the CDB, to which the petition for condemnation referred, be considered a substitute for the county board's finding of necessity. That resolution, taken together with the appropriation bill, the Governor's consent, and section 51 of the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois, did authorize the filing of the petition. The constitutional requirement of necessity, however, is separate, and under section 26 that determination of necessity was to be made by the county board. Even if the CDB had been able, despite section 26, to make the determination of the needs of the circuit court, testimony of CDB officials indicates that no determination of the need for new circuit court facilities was ever undertaken by the CDB. We would not defer to a mere self-serving recitation of necessity in any event (People ex rel. City of Salem v. McMackin (1972), 53 Ill. 2d 347), but no recitation of necessity was even included in the CDB resolution.
Finally, the State attempts to rely on the appropriation itself as a finding of necessity. However, an appropriation bill must, under our constitution, be limited to the subject of appropriations, and not contain substantive law. (Benjamin v. Devon Bank (1977), 68 Ill. 2d 142, 148; People ex rel. Kirk v. Lindberg (1974), 59 Ill. 2d 38, 42.) If construed to be a mandate that it was necessary that the Sangamon County *239 circuit court move to the courts' complex, it would shift responsibility for housing the circuit courts of the State embodied in section 26, and to that extent would be a change in the substantive law, improperly included in an appropriation bill.
It should be noted, too, that, while governmental bodies have some discretion as to the amount of property to be taken for a public use, the courts must intervene if the amount taken is excessive. Future needs cannot excuse the taking of an excessive amount of property. In City of Chicago v. Vaccarro (1951), 408 Ill. 587, 598, this court stated that only needs of the public "which may be fairly anticipated in the future" may be considered. (See City of Waukegan v. Stanczak (1955), 6 Ill. 2d 594. See also Salt Lake County v. Ramoselli (Utah 1977), 567 P.2d 182; City of Helena v. DeWolf (1973), 162 Mont. 57, 508 P.2d 122; O'Neil v. Board of County Commissioners (1965), 3 Ohio St. 53, 209 N.E.2d 393; City of Phoenix v. McCullough (1975), 24 Ariz. App. 109, 114-15, 536 P.2d 230, 235-36.) If over half of the total area sought were being taken without any showing of need, present or future, it is apparent that the amount of property sought by the petition would be "grossly excessive" (City of Waukegan v. Stanczak (1955), 6 Ill. 2d 594, 604) and the entire petition invalid.
Testimony indicated that fully half of the land sought for the complex was to be used by the circuit court. Over 50% of the floor space and the greater part of the parking facilities were attributable to the circuit court. Since there was no legislative finding of necessity for the circuit court's part of this complex, there was no finding to which a trial court would be required to defer that this half of the property sought was needed for a public use. In Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R.R. Co. v. Abens (1922), 306 Ill. 69, and in Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul R.R. Co. v. Franzen (1919) 287 Ill. 346, we held that certain regulatory consents were not conditions precedent to a condemnation action. In *240 this case, the absence of a legislative finding of necessity would not be fatal if it were otherwise unequivocally established by this record that this property was necessary for Sangamon County circuit court use. The case turns on whether, lacking such legislative determination, the record contains such evidence to support the trial court's implicit finding that necessity existed. (Trustees of Schools v. First National Bank (1971), 49 Ill. 2d 408.) Virtually the only information that the court had concerning the present Sangamon County circuit court facility was the fact that it was a 12-year-old air-conditioned building  among the newest of Illinois courthouses. Obviously it cannot be said that there was any substantial evidence of need for that portion of the property sought for the circuit court's use, and the petition attempting to take the entire block should have been dismissed as an attempt to take a "grossly excessive" amount of land.
Defendant urges that we take judicial notice of the earlier quoted resolution of the county board, formally withdrawing from the project. This resolution was adopted by the county board on April 14, 1981, while this appeal was pending. Article VI, section 4(a), of our constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, § 4(a)) provides: "(a) The Supreme Court may exercise original jurisdiction * * * as may be necessary to the complete determination of any cause on review." Section 2 of "An Act in relation to judicial notice" (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 51, par. 48b) states in part:
Section 1 (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 51, par. 48a) provides:
This court interpreted sections 1 and 2 in Scott v. Rochford (1979), 77 Ill. 2d 507, to require that this court take judicial notice of rules promulgated pursuant to municipal ordinance as well as certificates evidencing their publication. We believe that we should take judicial notice of the resolution. Although Blanchette v. Connecticut General Insurance Corporations (1974), 412 U.S. 102, 42 L. Ed. 2d 320, 95 S. Ct. 335, implies that under some circumstances a decision might be rendered by a reviewing court based upon facts which have changed from the situation in the trial court, we rely on the April 14, 1981, resolution only to reassure us that no necessity for the condemnation of land for a new circuit court facility ever did exist. The April 14 resolution may well indicate that if the CDB had gone to the board and sought an explicit and definite resolution at the outset, the county board would have refused to adopt such a resolution.
Accordingly, the judgment of the circuit court of Sangamon County is reversed and this cause remanded with directions to dismiss the petition.
Reversed and remanded, with directions.