Opinion ID: 1846896
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Trespass or Inverse Condemnation

Text: The City/Parish claims that the lower courts erred in characterizing the City/Parish's action as a trespass, rather than an inverse condemnation, which resulted in the plaintiffs' recovery of damages under La. C.C. 2315. The City/Parish argues that it was justified in going onto plaintiffs' property to dig the ditches because an emergency flooding situation existed on Staring Lane which threatened the subdivision across the street from plaintiffs' property and the road bed and that the judge in the July, 1983 injunction suit had ruled that a natural drain existed on the Raby's property and gave the City/Parish the right to restore that natural drain, which is what they were attempting to accomplish by digging the new ditches. The City/Parish argues that its failure to institute an expropriation proceeding does not result in its action being a trespass, but only entitles the plaintiffs to inverse condemnation damages. The court of appeal found that this did not qualify as an inverse condemnation suit because [d]espite their attempts on appeal to characterize their actions as something other than trespass, the defendants have not established a lawful reason for their presence on plaintiffs' property, such as an exercise of the power of eminent domain. 715 So.2d at 24. We recognized a landowner's right to compensation where the state fails to properly expropriate his property in Reymond v. State Through Dept. of Highways, 255 La. 425, 231 So.2d 375 (1970). We held that [s]ince a taking or damaging of property may in fact occur without expropriation proceedings by a public body through oversight or lack of foresight, there must be some proceeding whereby an owner may seek redress when his property is damaged or taken without the proper exercise of eminent domain. Reymond, 231 So.2d at 383 (emphasis added). Such an action is often referred to as `inverse condemnation', and our Article 1, Section 2, and Article 4, Section 15, support a proceeding in the nature of inverse condemnation by such an affected property owner. Id. In order to determine whether property rights have been taken under La. Const. Art. 1, Sec. 4, which provides that property shall not be taken or damaged by the state or its political subdivisions except for public purposes and with just compensation paid to the owner, the court must (1) determine if a right with respect to a thing or an object has been affected; (2) if it is determined that property is involved, decide whether the property has been taken or damaged in a constitutional sense; and (3) determine whether the taking or damaging is for a public purpose under Article 1, Sec. 4. Constance v. State Through Dept. Of Transp. and Development Office of Highways, 626 So.2d 1151, 1157 (La.1993); State Through Dept. Of Transp. and Development v. Chambers Investment Co., Inc., 595 So.2d 598 (La.1992). Clearly, plaintiffs property has been taken and they are thus entitled to inverse condemnation damages for the damage to their property as a result of the taking. The City/Parish claims that under Reymond and Gray v. State Through Dept. of Highways, 250 La. 1045, 202 So.2d 24 (1967), the plaintiffs are limited to an inverse condemnation action, and are not entitled to any damages under general tort law. [1] In Reymond, we held that damages which cause discomfort, disturbance, inconvenience, and even sometimes financial loss as an ordinary and general consequence of public improvements are not compensable, and are considered damnum absque injuria [loss without injury in the legal sense]. 231 So.2d at 383. In Gray, because of a technical error in its expropriation proceeding, the State, although it was acting in good faith for public purposes, failed to properly expropriate the landowners' property. We held that the landowners were not entitled to damages under 2315 for trespass, but could only recover the same damages as they could have had the land been properly expropriated, which amount would guarantee full compensation for the taking. 202 So.2d at 29. We held that according to well-settled jurisprudence, this measure of compensation is to be estimated by the same standards whether the property taken is formally expropriated in accordance with law or appropriated by the condemning authority so long as it is intentionally taken for a public use. Id. Albeit in appropriation cases the condemning authority does not obey the mandate of the law that the compensation be paid before the taking, the non-compliance of this condition precedent to the condemnation does not subject the appropriator to a penalty, for when the owner recovers just compensation, he recovers all the law gives him. Id. at 30. To hold otherwise would be to inflict punitive damages upon the condemnor which is not permissible under our civil law system. Id. However, in Gray, we specifically held that under the facts presented, the State did not commit a tortious act, and it was not a bad faith trespasser. Instead, the State had a valid good faith reason for not complying with the technical requirements in obtaining a servitude [2] and thus we reiterate[d] that plaintiffs exhibit no case under Article 2315 of our Civil Code, for that Article imposes liability for damages on those who inflict injury on others through a tortious act; no tort was committed here and plaintiffs suffered no damages cognizable under that codal article. Id. In addition, we held that plaintiffs were not entitled to damages for trespass because they unjustifiably failed to take any action to prevent the appropriation. The important features that distinguish the case at bar from the above cases is that, although the City/Parish may have been acting for a public purpose, the City/Parish did not fail to undertake expropriation proceedings through oversight or lack of foresight, as mentioned in Reymond, or as a result of a good faith error, as in Gray. Instead, after a judge refused to issue a judgment allowing them to go onto plaintiffs' land and clear the natural drain, and after the police department's legal advisor and the assistant parish attorney told them that they needed a court order, the City/Parish took the matter into their own hands, and dug three wide canals across all three properties over a course of one-two months accompanied by 24-hour armed security. [3] We agree with the lower courts that the City/Parish was a bad faith trespasser and is liable for all the resultant damages under Article 2315. In addition, we must point out that the City/Parish has not even proven that if they had sought to properly expropriate the property, that a court could have found a sufficient basis for allowing them to do so. Moreover, even if they had been able to show that expropriation was an appropriate remedy, the City/Parish has made no showing that a court would have allowed them to excavate the ditches on plaintiffs' property. In fact, witnesses testified that the ditches did not even solve the flooding of Staring Lane. Thus, the lower courts were correct in finding that the plaintiffs are not limited to an inverse condemnation action. This is consistent with our holding in State, Through Dept. of Highways v. Ellender, where we held that the defendant landowners in an expropriation suit were entitled to assert reconventional demands against the State in tort for damage to their crop. 379 So.2d 1069 (La.1980). [4] We hold that in addition to property damages resulting from this inverse condemnation, plaintiffs are also entitled to general damages under Article 2315. See also Gaspard v. St. Martin Parish Sewerage Dist. #1, 569 So.2d 1083 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1990) (mental anguish damages awardable where governing authority laid unauthorized sewage line across property); M & A Farms, Ltd. v. Town of Ville Platte, 422 So.2d 708 (La.App. 3 Cir.1982) (town committed a continuing trespass by laying a sidewalk without obtaining a written right of way; mental anguish not awarded because a corporate plaintiff cannot experience mental anguish); Pearce v. L.J. Earnest, Inc., 411 So.2d 1276 (La.App. 3 Cir.), writ denied, 414 So.2d 377 (La.1982) (plaintiffs allowed to recover damages in tort where governing cleared right of way of private property with no color of authority, notwithstanding notice of the probable invalidity of their actions); McCloud v. Jefferson Parish, 383 So.2d 477 (La.App. 4 Cir.1980) (Lemmon, concurring) (once government undertakes to improve drainage, it has a duty to perform this function according to reasonable standards and in manner which does not cause damage to particular citizens under Article 2315); Arnold v. Town of Ball, 94-972 (La App. 3 Cir. 2/1/95), 651 So.2d 313 (The fact that Article 1, Section 4 limits Plaintiffs' recovery to property damages does not preclude them from recovering damages for the loss of use of enjoyment of their property, mental anguish, irritation, anxiety, discomfort, and embarrassment under Article 667 or Article 2315); Simmons v. Board of Com'rs of Bossier Levee Dist., 624 So.2d 935 (La.App. 2 Cir.1993) (plaintiffs awarded mental anguish damages in inverse condemnation action); Ursin v. New Orleans Aviation Bd., 506 So.2d 947 (La.App. 5 Cir.1987) (plaintiffs entitled to recover for property damage under inverse condemnation and for personal injury or property damage that was not a taking under Arts. 667-669 and 2315).