Opinion ID: 2634529
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: odot's appeal and the coca disposition

Text: ¶ 5 Prior to the initiation of this condemnation proceeding, landowners received approximately $13,500.00 as reimbursement of relocation expenses pursuant to the federal and state relocation assistance acts. [4] Although landowners admitted that they received this payment, the specifics of how they came to receive the payment and the payment's amount were not part of the evidence submitted in the condemnation proceeding. [5] We do know that landowners did not appeal the payment's amount through the administrative appeals process. ¶ 6 In the condemnation proceeding ODOT moved in limine to prevent landowners from introducing into evidence any proof of their moving and related expenses, arguing that the federal and state relocation assistance acts' administrative process was the exclusive means of obtaining reimbursement of such expenses. ODOT argued that landowners' failure to pursue the administrative appeals procedure available to a party who is dissatisfied with the amount of a relocation assistance payment foreclosed their access to a judicial forum to seek reimbursement of any additional relocation expenses. The trial court disagreed and allowed the jury to consider as a compensable item the amount of relocation expenses landowners incurred that had not been reimbursed by the relocation payment landowners received. The jury awarded landowners $265,000.00 in a lump sum. ¶ 7 ODOT appealed, again arguing that landowners' exclusive remedy for recovery of relocation expenses was through the administrative procedure set up by the federal and state relocation assistance acts and their failure to exhaust administrative remedies with respect to the relocation assistance payment they received barred them from seeking any relief in a judicial forum for moving and related expenses. ODOT argued that the lump sum judgment, which included unrecoverable relocation expenses, exceeded the trial court's jurisdiction and must be reversed. Landowners argued on appeal that relocation expenses are compensable in a condemnation proceeding and the trial court's reception of evidence of those expenses was appropriate. ¶ 8 The COCA opinion held both that relocation expenses can be recovered in a condemnation proceeding and that landowners were required to exhaust administrative remedies under the federal and state relocation acts. COCA interwove these two principles by holding that the amount of relocation expenses recoverable in the condemnation proceeding is limited to the difference between the amount of moving expenses landowners actually incurred and the maximum relocation assistance payment to which they would have been entitled had they pursued their administrative remedies to a successful conclusion. Hence the COCA remanded the case to the trial court with directions to determine the maximum amount landowners could have received if they had succeeded in an administrative appeal. COCA then instructs the trial court to reduce the judgment by any additional amount landowners could have received but did not due to their inaction. According to COCA's reduction formula, landowners' recovery must be reduced by either $6,500.00 or by $2,594.00, depending on which section of the federal relocation assistance act the trial court decides is applicable to them. ¶ 9 ODOT, who agrees with the exhaustion-of-administrative-remedies theory adopted by the COCA opinion, seeks certiorari not to challenge the COCA's reasoning, but to obtain corrective relief  reversal of the judgment  denied by the COCA. ODOT contends that the COCA should have reversed the judgment in its entirety for landowners' failure to exhaust administrative remedies rather than remanding the cause to the trial court for a hearing to determine a reduction in the amount of the judgment. Landowners, who stand to lose at most $6,500.00 of their $265,000.00 judgment, did not file their own certiorari petition.