Opinion ID: 1193421
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Heading: The Constitutional Challenge on the Issues of Taking Property without Due Process or Just Compensation and the Impairment of Contracts.

Text: The City may not challenge the State on the issues of taking property without due process or just compensation and the impairment of its contracts. This court's holding and rationale, as follows, in State ex rel. List v. County of Douglas, 90 Nev. 272, 280-81, 524 P.2d 1271, 1276 (1974), are controlling in the instant case: Douglas County, as a political subdivision of the State of Nevada, may not invoke the proscriptions of the Fourteenth Amendment in opposition to the will of its creator. Williams v. Baltimore, 289 U.S. 36, 53 S.Ct. 431, 77 L.Ed. 1015 (1933); Trenton v. New Jersey, 262 U.S. 182, 43 S.Ct. 534, 67 L.Ed. 937 (1923). It may not complain of state action on the ground that it has been deprived of its property without due process of law. The basic principles were summarized in the case of Hunter v. Pittsburgh, 207 U.S. 161, 28 S.Ct. 40, 52 L.Ed. 356 (1907): It would be unnecessary and unprofitable to analyze these decisions or quote from the opinions rendered. We think the following principles have been established by them and have become settled doctrines of this court, to be acted upon wherever they are applicable. Municipal corporations are political subdivisions of the state, created as convenient agencies for exercising such of the governmental powers of the state as may be entrusted to them. For the purpose of executing these powers properly and efficiently they usually are given the power to acquire, hold, and manage personal and real property. The number, nature and duration of the powers conferred upon these corporations and the territory over which they shall be exercised rests in the absolute discretion of the state. Neither their charters, nor any law conferring governmental powers or vesting in them property to be used for governmental purposes, or authorizing them to hold or manage such property, or exempting them from taxation upon it, constitutes a contract with the state within the meaning of the Federal Constitution. The state, therefore, at its pleasure, may modify or withdraw all such powers, may take, without compensation such property, hold it itself, or vest it in other agencies, expand or contract the territorial area, unite the whole or a part of it with another municipality, repeal the charter and destroy the corporation. All this may be done, conditionally or unconditionally, with or without the consent of the citizens, or even against their protest. In all these respects the state is supreme, and its legislative body, conforming its action to the state constitution, may do as it will, unrestrained by any provision of the Constitution of the United States. Although the inhabitants and property owners may, by such changes suffer inconvenience, and their property may be lessened in value by the burden of increased taxation, or for any other reason, they have no right, by contract or otherwise, in the unaltered or continued existence of the corporation or its powers, and there is nothing in the Federal Constitution which protects them from these injurious consequences. The power is in the state and those who legislate for the state are alone responsible for any unjust or oppressive exercise of it.  Id. at 178-179, 28 S.Ct. at 46. (Emphasis added.) Although this court's ruling in List was focused on the fourteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution, we hold that the same reasoning applies to the due process clause of the Nevada Constitution, article 1, section 8. Similarly, and relying on the High Court's pronouncement in Hunter, upon which we predicated our ruling in List, we conclude that in the instant case the taking of the City's property for public use does not violate the Nevada Constitution. Nor was the constitutional proscription against the impairment of contractual obligations violated. Nev. Const. art. 1, § 15. The City, created as a governmental agency for administration by the State, cannot complain that its contracts are impaired, since its contractual rights are derived from the State itself. [1] See Alameda County v. Janssen, 106 P.2d 11, 15 (Cal. 1940), where Mr. Justice Traynor, writing for the California Supreme Court, held: Such cancellations in no way violate the provisions of the United States and California Constitutions prohibiting the passage of any law impairing the obligation of contracts. These provisions do not prevent the legislature from changing the contractual rights of its political subdivisions acting in a governmental capacity. County of Tulare v. City of Dinuba, 188 Cal. 664, 206 P. 983; City of Trenton v. New Jersey, 262 U.S. 182, 43 S.Ct. 534, 67 L.Ed. 937, 29 A.L.R. 1471; City of Worcester v. Worcester Consol. Street Railway Co., 196 U.S. 539, 25 S.Ct. 237, 49 L.Ed. 591... .