Opinion ID: 2506385
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Summary Judgment Interpretation of the Statute

Text: [¶ 9] We review a grant of summary judgment entered in response to a petition for declaratory judgment de novo. Wyo. Cmty. Coll. Comm'n v. Casper Cmty. Coll. Dist., 2001 WY 86, ¶ 11, 31 P.3d 1242, 1247 (Wyo.2001). We accord no deference to the district court on issues of law and may affirm the summary judgment on any legal grounds appearing in the record. Id. The summary judgment can be sustained only when no genuine issues of material fact are present and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. There is no question of material fact in this case. The declaratory action was brought to determine whether the Board had the authority to grant temporary access over Appellee's land during the pending private road condemnation action. The parties admit that the Appellants requested temporary access and that the Board subsequently granted that temporary access across Appellee's land. [¶ 10] All that remains is to examine the district court's interpretation of the statute. The Board gave the following justification for its decision to grant Appellants temporary access during the private road condemnation action: Respondents correctly point out that the private road statute in effect at the time of the filing of the Petition does not expressly provide for the creation of temporary access during pendency of the proceedings.[ [3] ] The statute does not address temporary access by allowing or disallowing it. However, the statute ultimately empowers the Board to declare existence of a permanent private road. The Board will assume and exercise its implied power to address the Petitioner's requested relief for temporary access as it has a multitude of issues that have arisen during the nine year history of this road application. ... [¶ 11] While the Board was correct that it is possible for an agency to have implied powers in conjunction with express statutory grants of power, this is not a situation where such an implied power exists. [W]e have long held that administrative agencies have certain implied powers necessary to fulfillment of their statutory purposes. Of course, those implied powers are only those derived by necessary implication from express statutory authority granted to the agency. A more comprehensive statement of the concept of implied powers in this setting is this: Generally, administrative agencies have the implied or incidental powers that are reasonably necessary in order to carry out the powers expressly granted. The reason for implied powers is that, as a practical matter, the legislature cannot foresee all the problems incidental to carrying out the duties and responsibilities of the agency. However, the inherent or implied power of an administrative agency is not boundless. BP Am. Prod. Co. v. Dep't of Revenue, 2006 WY 27, ¶ 28, 130 P.3d 438, 466-67 (Wyo.2006) (citations omitted). [¶ 12] Wyoming's private road statutes provide the mechanism by which a landowner may petition the exercise of the State's eminent domain power to condemn a private road across another's property in order to establish access between his own property and a public road. Hulse v. First Amer. Title Co., 2001 WY 95, ¶ 31, 33 P.3d 122, 132 (Wyo.2001). Neither the county commissioners nor the district court [is] at liberty to graft onto the statute that which [it] thinks ought to be included or to delete that which [it] find[s] inconvenient. Neither they nor we have authority to add to or delete from a statute. Dunning v. Ankney, 936 P.2d 61, 64-65 (Wyo.1997) (quoting McGuire v. McGuire, 608 P.2d 1278, 1287 (Wyo.1980)). [¶ 13] Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 24-9-101 (LexisNexis 1999) makes no provision for temporary access. The purpose of a private road condemnation action is to determine whether a landowner meets the statutory requirements that allow a board of county commissioners to exercise its very limited powers of eminent domain. A grant of temporary access, while convenient for the petitioning landowner during the proceeding, is not a necessary step in the process. The ability of the commission to perform its duty is in no way frustrated by the lack of power to grant temporary access. Therefore, the power to grant temporary access is not reasonably necessary in order to carry out the powers expressly granted.