Opinion ID: 2054930
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Just Compensation for a Taking

Text: This court has recognized less tangible property rights in the analogous situation of highway access. The early highway access cases denied compensation on the Asher -like theory that a property owner has no vested interest in the continued flow of the main stream of through traffic. See Hendrickson v. State, 267 Minn. 436, 442, 127 N.W.2d 165, 170 (1964). In Hendrickson, however, we rejected this outdated approach as to abutting owners and reasoned that a property right to access should be recognized because of a number of sound factors, including the fact that, in some cases, the roadway was built with taxes and assessments paid by the abutting owners. Id. at 442-43, 127 N.W.2d at 170-71. In Hendrickson, we also resisted the temptation to avoid the taking issue by characterizing the government's decision to impair the plaintiff's access to the highway as a police action. See Hendrickson, 267 Minn. at 441-42, 127 N.W.2d at 170. In Alevizos v. Metropolitan Airport Commission of Minneapolis and St. Paul, 298 Minn. 471, 216 N.W.2d 651 (1974), we said: Any statement of what constitutes property can only be nebulous at best.    Property is more than the physical thing  it involves the group of rights inhering in a citizen's relation to the physical thing. Traditionally, that group of rights has included the rights to possess, use, and dispose of property. Id. at 485, 216 N.W.2d at 661 (footnote omitted). In a climate such as Minnesota's, access to natural gas for heating is as essential to the reasonable use of commercial property as access to a highway. By depriving a property owner access to the municipal gas mains, a city effectively deprives the property owner of the right to use his or her property. Accordingly, we should recognize that the petitioners have a compensable property interest in the gaslines that were, in effect, taken when the city decided to switch to a high pressure gas main on the portion of Main Street which abutted the petitioners' land. The majority suggests that, even if the old lines were taken, the petitioners suffered no legally cognizable damage when the old lines were rendered useless by the installation of the high pressure main. The measure of damages in a case like this is the difference between the market value of the property before and after the taking. Alevizos, 298 Minn. at 487-88, 216 N.W.2d at 662; see also Hendrickson, 267 Minn. at 446, 127 N.W.2d at 173. The valuation of property which has been taken must be calculated as of the time of the taking. First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. Los Angeles County, 482 U.S. 304, 320, 107 S.Ct. 2378, 2388, 96 L.Ed.2d 250 (1987). A hypothetical sale scenario makes it is easy to see that the value of petitioners' property was diminished. Suppose that, instead of making the required expenditures under protest as they did, petitioners had decided to sell their property. If one of the parcels was worth $100,000 with a functioning natural gasline, it is logical to conclude that it would be worth less with a disconnected gasline. If it were known that the gas service could be restored by paying $1,500 for new gaslines, surely, a hypothetical buyer would discount his or her purchase offer by at least that amount. The fact that the petitioners attempted to mitigate their damages by paying, under protest, for the required improvements does not change this analysis. The issue of waiver was litigated below, and the trial court obviously concluded there was no waiver. The record contains no evidence that this conclusion was erroneous. Consequently, I would hold that the petitioners are entitled to the damages awarded by the trial court.