Opinion ID: 1761036
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Whether the municipalities have due process rights which are offended by the 1987 Amendments.

Text: ¶ 24. The appellees state that since the due process required by the Federal Constitution is the same `due process of law' which is required by Section 14 of the Constitution of the State of Mississippi, these two claims can be dealt with together. Miss. Power Co. v. Goudy, 459 So.2d 257, 261 (Miss. 1984). ¶ 25. The municipalities allege that the due process that is being denied them is the ability to carry out the power of eminent domain to acquire privately owned electric utilities. The municipalities argue further that the 1987 Amendments accomplish this by placing the option of preventing the exercise of the municipalities' power of eminent domain in the hands of the defendant-utilities. The crux of the municipalities' argument is that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Article 3, Section 14 of the Mississippi Constitution prohibit the denial of the right of due process. ¶ 26. This argument as applied to this case is without merit. As the defendant-utilities state in their brief and as stated supra, the municipalities have no right of eminent domain. Their power of eminent domain if any is derived by grant of statute. H.K. Porter, 324 So.2d at 752. It is admitted by the municipalities that they have no due process rights against the Legislature. The case of South Macomb Disposal Authority v. Township of Washington holds: The nature of the relationship between a public corporation and its creating state has led the Court to conclude that a municipal corporation cannot invoke the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment against its own state, City of Newark v. New Jersey, 262 U.S. 192, 196, 43 S.Ct. 539, 540, 67 L.Ed. 943 (1923), and is prevented from attacking the constitutionality of state legislation on the grounds that its own rights have been impaired. 790 F.2d 500, 504 (6th Cir.1986) (citations omitted). ¶ 27. The municipalities make the argument that they brought suit against the defendant-utilities and are thus attacking acts of the defendant-utilities and not the State, therefore they should be able to enforce due process rights against the utilities. Here again, the Court fails to see the merit in this argument. The municipalities' attack is an attack on the Legislature and not the actions of the defendant-utilities. The violations that the municipalities allege are directly a result of the 1987 Amendments and that is why the municipalities question the constitutionality of said amendments. We find that the municipalities are attacking the Legislature via the 1987 Amendments and, thus, are precluded from invoking the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment as set forth above. ¶ 28. Furthermore, the municipalities cannot invoke the due process clause against the defendant-utilities because they are private entities. The defendant-utilities bring to this Court's attention a number of cases which underscore this point. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 13, 68 S.Ct. 836, 842, 92 L.Ed. 1161 (1948) (Fourteenth Amendment acts as a shield against only the government and does not affect the relations between private parties); Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830, 837, 102 S.Ct. 2764, 2769, 73 L.Ed.2d 418 (1982) ([T]he Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits the states from denying federal constitutional rights and which guarantees due process, applies to acts of the states, not to acts of private persons or entities.). Cf. Campbell v. United States, 962 F.2d 1579, 1583 (11th Cir.1992) (Even when state laws permit private conduct which allegedly deprives claimants of constitutional rights, these laws do not transform private conduct into state action.). ¶ 29. We hold that even if the Plaintiff Municipalities had a right of eminent domain, it is prescribed totally by Legislative act and as the Fifth Circuit has said that when the Legislature extinguishes a right via legislation that effects a general class of people, the legislative process provides all of the process that is due. McMurtray v. Holladay, 11 F.3d 499, 504 (5th Cir.1993). Since the municipalities claim a denial of due process by the 1987 Amendments' restriction on the municipalities' eminent domain powers, we hold the obvious that the legislative process leading up to the enactment of the 1987 Amendments provided all the process that was due. The municipalities lost in the 1987 legislative enactments and the remedy for change is in the Legislature.