Opinion ID: 4556507
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: udot’s authority to condemn parcel 84

Text: ¶25 Coalt argues that UDOT’s taking of Parcel 84 exceeds its statutory and constitutional condemnation authority. Coalt’s argument relies upon two related premises. Coalt asserts that UDOT took Parcel 84 not to mitigate the environmental impact of the Legacy Parkway, but as a “ransom” paid to private litigants so they would drop the federal litigation. Additionally, because the 7 UDOT v. COALT Opinion of the Court federal agencies did not require the additional mitigation to approve the project and the Corps therefore agreed to let UDOT use it in obtaining Corps approval of future transportation projects, Coalt asserts that the mitigation included in the settlement agreement is not actually for the Legacy Parkway but for “unspecified future projects.” ¶26 Based upon these antecedent presumptions, Coalt first argues that UDOT lacks statutory authority to take Parcel 84. Utah’s general eminent domain statute permits condemnation only when necessary for a public use. See UTAH CODE § 78B-6-501. The eminent domain statute identifies many public uses, among which are “roads, byroads, streets, and alleys for public vehicular use,” id. § 78B-6-501(2)(c)(v), and “all other public uses authorized by the Legislature,” id. § 78B-6-501(2)(b). The public uses enumerated in this statute are the “starting point.” Utah Dep’t of Transp. v. Carlson, 2014 UT 24, ¶ 20, 332 P.3d 900. The legislature has enacted a range of other statutes authorizing public uses beyond those listed here. See id. ¶ 21 n.2 & n.3. ¶27 With regard to public highways in particular, the Rights-of-Way Act empowers UDOT to “acquire any real property . . . necessary for temporary, present, or reasonable future state transportation purposes by . . . condemnation.” UTAH CODE § 72-5-103(1). Section 102 lists a number of “state transportation purposes” including “the mitigation of impacts from public transportation projects.” Id. § 72-5-102(12). ¶28 Coalt asserts that because settling litigation is not one of the state transportation purposes enumerated in the Rights-ofWay Act, UDOT has exceeded its statutory authority. But the fact that UDOT agreed to take the additional mitigation property as part of a settlement is not legally relevant in and of itself. What matters is the purpose of the taking. Coalt asks us to ignore the facts of the case before us, as demonstrated by a hypothetical Coalt advances in which it compares the scenario here with one in which a private citizen harasses UDOT with litigation to induce a settlement that would increase his personal residential property value. As the court of appeals noted, This is not a circumstance where, in order to settle a lawsuit over a public project, a state agency condemns a parcel of land physically and functionally unrelated to the project itself in order to satisfy a litigant’s private interests, also unrelated to 8 Cite as: 2020 UT 58 Opinion of the Court the project. We have no occasion to consider the quite dissimilar issues those circumstances might raise. Utah Dep’t of Transp. v. Coalt Inc., 2016 UT App 169, ¶ 18 n.6, 382 P.3d 602. ¶29 The very focus of the federal litigation was the question of what steps were necessary to minimize the environmental impact of running the Legacy Parkway along the wetlands of the Great Salt Lake. UDOT believed the 2000 EIS provided sufficient environmental protection. But the public interest litigants disagreed. The litigants did not advance a private, personal agenda. Rather their arguments centered on the sufficiency of the environmental impact statement. ¶30 The Tenth Circuit concluded that the litigants had identified legitimate problems with the 2000 EIS and the CWA permit. The Tenth Circuit concluded that in granting the CWA permit, the Corps had acted arbitrarily and capriciously because it had not adequately studied the impact of the highway on wildlife. The Tenth Circuit observed, The Great Salt Lake (“GSL”) and the wetlands surrounding its shoreline serve as an important habitat for a variety of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals, some of which are endangered. The wetlands of the GSL account for 75 percent of all wetlands in the State of Utah, whose total land area consists of only 1.5 percent wetlands. The shores of the GSL are internationally important because they are a link of the Pacific Flyway for migratory waterfowl and a link of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (“WHSRN”). Some two to five million birds use the GSL yearly and 90 percent of that use is concentrated in the eastern shore. Utahns for Better Transp. v. U.S. Dep’t of Transp., 305 F.3d 1152, 1161 (10th Cir. 2002), as modified on reh’g, 319 F.3d 1207 (10th Cir. 2003). ¶31 The Tenth Circuit rejected the 2000 EIS and the CWA permit. UDOT spent two more years studying how much mitigation was necessary for the project to go forward. UDOT thought the solution was contained in the 2004 Draft EIS. But again, the public interest litigants disagreed. And as is always the case with litigation, UDOT had no guarantee that it would 9 UDOT v. COALT Opinion of the Court prevail. So it resolved the dispute as to how much mitigation was necessary through compromise. ¶32 Coalt essentially asks us to conclude that unless UDOT deemed Parcel 84 to be necessary mitigation for the Parkway on its own, independent of any third-party influence, then UDOT did not really take the property for the project. Rather it took the property to appease the third party, thus addressing a private rather than a public purpose. ¶33 This is similar to the argument we rejected in another case related to mitigation of the Legacy Parkway, Utah Department of Transportation v. G. Kay, Inc., 2003 UT 40, 78 P.3d 612. That case involved an earlier taking of land by UDOT for the Legacy Nature Preserve. See id. ¶¶ 2–3. We noted that “[b]ecause construction of the highway would necessitate filling wetlands subject to federal regulation,” UDOT had to obtain the CWA permit discussed above. Id. ¶ 2. Before providing the permit, the Corps required the taking that was the subject of that case to offset the environmental effects of the Parkway. Id. Like Coalt argues here, the defendant in that case complained that “the condemnation statute does not authorize UDOT to acquire land for the purpose of satisfying an agreement with federal agencies.” Id. ¶ 10. We disagreed: Federal influence in UDOT’s decision-making process would call UDOT’s action into question only if it showed that UDOT was attempting to do something other than mitigate impacts of a state transportation project when it brought the action to condemn G. Kay’s property for the preserve. Here, however, UDOT’s interaction with the [Corps] actually demonstrates that the proposed preserve was motivated by UDOT’s desire to obtain the permit required to proceed with the project. It therefore supports, rather than undermines, the conclusion that creation of the preserve was motivated by a “transportation purpose.” Any role played by federal agencies in selecting the particular land to be taken is likewise irrelevant. We do not review the internal processes of, or external influences on, UDOT in arriving at its decision to condemn particular properties for transportation purposes, except for indications of bad faith. Id. ¶¶ 10–11. 10 Cite as: 2020 UT 58 Opinion of the Court ¶34 Similarly, the fact that the public interest litigants influenced the final amount of mitigation that UDOT condemned for the Parkway is not necessarily material. Indeed, UDOT sought input from interested constituencies from the outset of the planning process. This would be relevant only if the facts showed that UDOT actually took Parcel 84 to do something other than mitigate the effects of the Parkway, or that UDOT acted in bad faith. Neither is the case here. After years of delay and having its first EIS and CWA permit thrown out by the Tenth Circuit, UDOT determined that the settlement agreement was necessary to end the dispute over environmental mitigation and lift the federal injunction that had halted the project. As in G. Kay, this demonstrates that UDOT’s taking of Parcel 84 was motivated by its desire to proceed with the project. This supports rather than undermines the conclusion that the taking and associated mitigation was for the Parkway. The legislature and the governor agreed that the settlement was necessary to proceed with the project. We will not second-guess that determination absent an indication of bad faith. ¶35 Next, Coalt argues that because the settlement agreement stated that the Corps would consider the additional land as mitigation for other “transportation projects” without reference to a specific project, the taking cannot be “necessary” to a state transportation purpose or public use as required by state law, see UTAH CODE §§ 72-5-103(1), 78B-6-504(1)(b), because the nature of the future project and its timeframe are unknown. If that were actually what happened, Coalt would have a point. It is correct that the language of the settlement agreement states that the Corps would consider the additional mitigation toward other “transportation projects.” But UDOT did not unnecessarily file a complaint to take Parcel 84 on the off-chance that it might be necessary to mitigate a future, unknown project. It made a beneficial agreement with the Corps, because the Corps did not require the additional mitigation for the CWA permit. The record facts clearly show that UDOT agreed to take Parcel 84 as mitigation for the Parkway. ¶36 We conclude that UDOT ultimately condemned the additional mitigation property, which includes Parcel 84, to mitigate the environmental impacts of the Parkway and to allow it to proceed with construction of the Parkway. These are unquestionably state transportation purposes under the Rights-of-Way Act. Id. § 72-5-102. 11 UDOT v. COALT Opinion of the Court ¶37 UDOT contends that it also had statutory authority to condemn Parcel 84 under the catch-all provision of the eminent domain statute because the legislature authorized the condemnation when it approved the settlement agreement. See id. § 78B-6-501(2)(b) (providing that eminent domain may be exercised for “all other public uses authorized by the Legislature”). Coalt disagrees that the resolution specifically authorized the taking. We need not resolve this issue as we have concluded that UDOT had ample statutory authority under the Rights-of-Way Act. ¶38 Finally, Coalt asserts that UDOT lacked constitutional authority to condemn Parcel 84 under the Takings Clause of the Utah Constitution, which permits property to be taken only for a public use.5 Coalt argues that settling litigation is not a “public use.” For the reasons articulated above, we reject Coalt’s characterization of UDOT’s purpose for condemning Parcel 84. The taking was to mitigate the impact of the Parkway and to lift the stay on construction. Coalt’s constitutional argument is without merit. ¶39 Because we conclude that UDOT does have authority to take Coalt’s property, we now analyze how Parcel 84 should be valued for purposes of just compensation.