Opinion ID: 848684
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: public use and private ownership

Text: When our Constitution was ratified in 1963, it was well-established in this Court's eminent domain jurisprudence that the constitutional public use requirement was not an absolute bar against the transfer of condemned property to private entities. [54] It was equally clear, however, that the constitutional public use requirement worked to prohibit the state from transferring condemned property to private entities for a private use. [55] Thus, this Court's eminent domain jurisprudence  at least that portion concerning the reasons for which the state may condemn private property  has focused largely on the area between these poles. Justice RYAN'S Poletown dissent accurately describes the factors that distinguish takings in the former category from those in the latter according to our pre-1963 eminent domain jurisprudence. [56] Accordingly, we conclude that the transfer of condemned property is a public use when it possess one of the three characteristics in our pre-1963 case law identified by Justice RYAN. First, condemnations in which private land was constitutionally transferred by the condemning authority to a private entity involved public necessity of the extreme sort otherwise impracticable. [57] The necessity that Justice RYAN identified in our pre-1963 case law is a specific kind of need: [T]he exercise of eminent domain for private corporations has been limited to those enterprises generating public benefits whose very existence depends on the use of land that can be assembled only by the coordination central government alone is capable of achieving.[ [58] ] Justice Ryan listed highways, railroads, canals, and other instrumentalities of commerce as examples of this brand of necessity. [59] A corporation constructing a railroad, for example, must lay track so that it forms a more or less straight path from point A to point B. If a property owner between points A and B holds out  say, for example, by refusing to sell his land for any amount less than fifty times its appraised value  the construction of the railroad is halted unless and until the railroad accedes to the property owner's demands. And if owners of adjoining properties receive word of the original property owner's windfall, they too will refuse to sell. The likelihood that property owners will engage in this tactic makes the acquisition of property for railroads, gas lines, highways, and other such instrumentalities of commerce a logistical and practical nightmare. Accordingly, this Court has held that the exercise of eminent domain in such cases  in which collective action is needed to acquire land for vital instrumentalities of commerce  is consistent with the constitutional public use requirement. [60] Second, this Court has found that the transfer of condemned property to a private entity is consistent with the constitution's public use requirement when the private entity remains accountable to the public in its use of that property. [61] Indeed, we disapproved of the use of eminent domain in Portage Twp. Bd. of Health in part because the entity acquiring the condemned land would not be subject to public oversight. [62] As Justice RYAN observed: [T]his Court disapproved condemnation that would have facilitated the generation of water power by a private corporation because the power company will own, lease, use, and control the water power. In addition, [we] warned, Land cannot be taken, under the exercise of the power of eminent domain, unless, after it is taken, it will be devoted to the use of the public, independent of the will of the corporation taking it.  [ [63] ] In contrast, we concluded in Lakehead Pipe Line Co. v. Dehn that the state retained sufficient control of a petroleum pipeline constructed by plaintiff on condemned property. [64] We noted specifically that plaintiff had pledged itself to transport in intrastate commerce, [65] that plaintiff's pipeline was used pursuant to directions from the Michigan Public Service Commission, and that the state would be able to enforce those obligations, should the need arise. [66] Thus, in the common understanding of those sophisticated in the law at the time of ratification, the public use requirement would have allowed for the transfer of condemned property to a private entity when the public retained a measure of control over the property. Finally, condemned land may be transferred to a private entity when the selection of the land to be condemned is itself based on public concern. [67] In Justice RYAN'S words, the property must be selected on the basis of facts of independent public significance, meaning that the underlying purposes for resorting to condemnation, rather than the subsequent use of condemned land, must satisfy the Constitution's public use requirement. The primary example of a condemnation in this vein is found in In re Slum Clearance, [68] a 1951 decision from this Court. In that case, we considered the constitutionality of Detroit's condemnation of blighted housing and its subsequent resale of those properties to private persons. The city's controlling purpose in condemning the properties was to remove unfit housing and thereby advance public health and safety; subsequent resale of the land cleared of blight was incidental to this goal. [69] We concluded, therefore, that the condemnation was indeed a public use, despite the fact that the condemned properties would inevitably be put to private use. In re Slum Clearance turned on the fact that the act of condemnation itself, rather than the use to which the condemned land eventually would be put, was a public use. [70] Thus, as Justice RYAN observed, the condemnation was a public use because the land was selected on the basis of facts of independent public significance [71]  namely, the need to remedy urban blight for the sake of public health and safety. The foregoing indicates that the transfer of condemned property to a private entity, seen through the eyes of an individual sophisticated in the law at the time of ratification of our 1963 Constitution, would be appropriate in one of three contexts: (1) where public necessity of the extreme sort requires collective action; (2) where the property remains subject to public oversight after transfer to a private entity; and (3) where the property is selected because of facts of independent public significance, rather than the interests of the private entity to which the property is eventually transferred. [72]