Opinion ID: 2585381
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 22

Heading: Property is a Bundle of Rights

Text: The dissent raises the further objection that the facts here do not involve a taking of property at all, at least in the same sense as discussed above. I think the answer to this question turns on the very meaning of property. I agree the issue is exactly as Justice Talmadge poses it: Properly analyzed, what the park owners claim the statute unconstitutionally took from them is their alleged right to sell their mobile home parks in any manner they might choose to whomever they might choose. Dissent, Talmadge, J., at 212. But as the `legal term property denotes not material things but certain rights,' Majority at 193 n.10 (quoting William B. Stoebuck, A General Theory of Eminent Domain, 47 Wash. L.Rev. 553, 600 (1972)), the dissent fails to recognize that when the government takes one right from the bundle which comprises property, it thereby takes an aspect or attribute of the property itself. Cf. Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 433, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 73 L.Ed.2d 868 (1982) (citing Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164, 176, 100 S.Ct. 383, 62 L.Ed.2d 332 (1979) (The right to exclude is one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property.)). See State ex rel. Smith v. Superior Court, 26 Wash. 278, 287, 66 P. 385 (1901) (`If property, then, consists not in tangible things themselves, but in certain rights in and appurtenant to those things, it follows that, when a person is deprived of any of those rights, he is to that extent deprived of his property, and hence, that his property may be taken, in the constitutional sense, though his title and possession remain undisturbed; ....') (quoting John Lewis, A Treatise on the Law of Eminent Domain in the United States § 56 (2d ed.1900)). If one of the rights of property has been damaged or removed from the bundle, the property has accordingly been damaged or taken to that extent. The unfettered right to sell one's possession is as fundamental [an] attribute of property as is the right to assert an exclusive possessory interest against even the slightest physical invasion. Guimont v. Clarke, 121 Wash.2d 586, 602, 854 P.2d 1 (1993) ([T]he court must first ask whether the regulation destroys or derogates any fundamental attribute of property ownership: including the right to ... dispose of property.); Loretto, 458 U.S. at 435-36, 102 S.Ct. 3164 (Property rights in a physical thing have been described as the rights `to possess, use and dispose of it' (quoting United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U.S. 373, 378, 65 S.Ct. 357, 359, 89 L.Ed. 311 (1945))); whereas, even though the owner may retain the bare legal right to dispose of the occupied space by transfer or sale, the permanent occupation of that space by a stranger will ordinarily empty the right of any value.... ( id. at 436, 102 S.Ct. 3164) (emphasis added)). When the government deprives a person of a fundamental right of property, the government does not simply take a single `strand' from the `bundle' of property rights: it chops through the bundle, taking a slice of every strand. Id. at 435, 102 S.Ct. 3164 (quoting Andrus v. Allard, 444 U.S. 51, 65-66, 100 S.Ct. 318, 62 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979)). Moreover, I would posit, since the right of first refusal may be transferred from one person to another, it is clearly property in that sense as well since `property' in eminent domain means every species of interest in land and things of a kind that an owner might transfer to another private person. Stoebuck, supra, 47 Wash. L.Rev. at 606. Likewise, I take issue with the view expressed in both dissents that the majority's analysis is somehow inconsistent with Guimont. Cf. Dissent, Johnson, J., at 202. In reality the majority strictly applies the Guimont holding that an appropriation for public use of a fundamental attribute of property ownership constitutes a taking in eminent domain. Thus, I disagree with the dissent that petitioners can only prevail on their takings claim if a right of first refusal is `property' in and of itself. Dissent, Johnson, J., at 202. Even if the right of first refusal were not itself property, imposing such a condition on sale plainly derogates the unfettered right to transfer, which is a fundamental attribute of ownership in the parcel. That the public may benefit from the acquisition is certainly no reason to characterize the appropriation as anything other than a taking. Rather, the greater the public benefit from appropriating or damaging the property, the more justified the suspicion that a taking has in fact occurred. Therefore when it is argued an acquisition or limitation of one's property is justified because it serves a public purpose, we must question all the more why a discrete property owner must bear a burden that in justice should be borne by many shoulders. Mission Springs, Inc. v. City of Spokane, 134 Wash.2d 947, 964, 954 P.2d 250 (1998) (The talisman of a taking is government action which forces some private persons alone to shoulder affirmative public burdens, `which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.' (quoting Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49, 80 S.Ct. 1563, 4 L.Ed.2d 1554 (1960))).