Opinion ID: 356004
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: reasonably necessary

Text: 32 To qualify for the substitute facilities measure the facility must be reasonably necessary to public welfare. 564.54 Acres I at 796. Reasonable necessity is an elusive concept, and consequently this is a difficult element of the substitute facilities doctrine to apply. The Government interprets reasonable necessity to mean that the facility must be necessary to the community in a strict sense, in the sense that it is indispensable and the community cannot get along without it. Brief for appellee at 12, 25. The Synod, on the other hand, equates reasonable necessity with community benefit. Brief for appellant at 32. We think the Synod's interpretation comes closer to capturing the correct meaning of reasonably necessary. 33 In some early cases, courts required that for replacement facilities to be necessary, the governmental owner must be compelled by law to replace them. E. g. United States v. Board of Education of County of Mineral, 253 F.2d 760, 764 (4th Cir. 1958); Clarksville v. United States, 198 F.2d 238, 243 (4th Cir. 1952); United States v. Wheeler Tp., 66 F.2d 977, 984 (8th Cir. 1933). The court in 564.54 Acres I expressly rejected the legal necessity test. Most courts have adopted a factual necessity test holding that, in some sense, the facilities must be necessary in fact. E. g. United States v. 3,727.91 Acres of Land, 563 F.2d 357 at 359 n.2 (8th Cir. 1977); United States v. Streets, Alleys & Public Ways, Etc., 531 F.2d 882, 886 (8th Cir. 1976); United States v. Certain Property in Borough of Manhattan, supra at 803-04; United States v. Certain Land in Borough of Brooklyn, supra at 695; Washington v. United States, 214 F.2d 33, 40 (9th Cir. 1954); Fort Worth v. United States, 188 F.2d 217, 222 (5th Cir. 1951); California v. United States, 169 F.2d 914, 924 (9th Cir. 1948); United States v. Arkansas, 164 F.2d 943, 945 (8th Cir. 1947); United States v. Los Angeles County, 163 F.2d 124, 125 (9th Cir. 1947); United States v. Des Moines County, 148 F.2d 448, 449 (8th Cir. 1945). An examination of the facts of many of those cases which reject the application of the substitute facilities doctrine on the ground that substitute facilities are not factually necessary shows that factually necessary may not mean necessity in a strict or absolute sense. In a number of those cases, constructing substitute facilities would have provided virtually no benefit, which was deprived by condemnation, to the community, either because the condemned facility was unused prior to condemnation, 10 or because the condemnation eliminated any need for the facility, 11 or because the condemnor constructed a functionally equivalent facility to serve the purpose the condemned facility had been serving. 12 Therefore, interpreting necessary to mean beneficial is consistent with the results of these cases. Furthermore, at least one early circuit court of appeals decision adhering to the factual necessity test expressly rejected a strict interpretation of necessity. Fort Worth v. United States, supra at 222. 13 We also note that commentators have supported rejection of a strict interpretation of necessity. Note, Duke L.J., supra note 4; Note, Substitute Facility Measure of Just Compensation Is Available to Private Owners of Nonprofit Community Facilities in Appropriate Cases, 6 Seton Hall L.Rev. 711 (1975); Note, Just Compensation and the Public Condemnee, 75 Yale L.J. 1053 (1966). 34 Although it is not clear that there ever was a generally accepted rule that substitute facilities must be strictly or absolutely necessary, if there were such a rule, 564.54 Acres I and other cases have abandoned that rule by qualifying necessary with reasonably. Certain Property in Borough of Manhattan, supra; Certain Land in Borough of Brooklyn, supra. See 3,727.91 Acres of Land, supra; Streets, Alleys & Public Ways, Etc., supra; Washington v. United States, supra. Moreover, in holding that the substitute facilities measure can apply to such facilities as camps, playgrounds and gymnasia, these courts established that reasonably necessary cannot possibly mean absolutely necessary or indispensable because no one camp, playground or gymnasium could ever be absolutely necessary or indispensable to a community. Therefore, a court that held that the substitute facilities doctrine is applicable to this type of facility, but only if the facility is absolutely necessary, would be giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Additionally, the entire expression used by the court in 564.54 Acres I, reasonably necessary to public welfare, also includes the elusive concept of public welfare. This suggests that the facilities need not be reasonably necessary to the existence of the community, but only to the well-being of the members of the community. They need not be so essential that they are required to make the community meet minimal standards, rather they need only make the community a better community. Read against the background of the history and development of the necessity requirement, the facts of the cases applying both the factually necessary test and the reasonably necessary test, and the ordinary language meaning of the expression reasonably necessary to public welfare, 14 the meaning of this element of the substitute facilities doctrine becomes clearer. There are two aspects to reasonable necessity. First, for a facility to be reasonably necessary it must provide a benefit to the community or be rationally related to the public welfare. 15 Of course, to say that a facility provides a benefit to the community is not to say that it serves everyone in the community. For example, a small neighborhood park that serves only the people living within walking distance from it may provide a benefit to the community. In this case, the Synod attempted to show that the camps helped alleviate the gang problem in inner-city Philadelphia. If the camps did help reduce such juvenile crime, then they provide a benefit to the entire community of Eastern Pennsylvania, not just to the campers. 35 Secondly, for a facility to meet the reasonably necessary test, the condemnor must not have eliminated the need or purpose which the condemned facility served. For example, if the condemnor has provided a functionally equivalent replacement facility, or if the condemnor renders a replacement facility useless by flooding the town it would have served, the condemnor has eliminated the need or purpose the condemned facility served, and it is not reasonably necessary to replace it. To summarize, for a facility to be reasonably necessary to public welfare, it must provide a benefit to the community that will not be as fully provided after the facility is taken. 36 Again, the jury instruction on this point did not accurately reflect our interpretation of the law. Although at one point the instruction regarding reasonable necessity referred to fulfilling a community need or purpose (N.T. 798), the instructions never equated reasonably necessary with community benefit. More seriously, the instructions seem to have emphasized the strict sense of necessity which we have rejected here. For example, they stated that for the reasonably necessary test to be met, the Synod must have a duty to replace the facility and the duty need not be legally compelled but may arise from necessity (N.T. 801). Moreover, the words need and necessary were used throughout the charge, but benefit was never used. 16 Therefore, the charge on the reasonably necessary issue was confusing and misleading.IV. 37 In part III above we established that three conditions must be met for the substitute facilities measure to apply to privately owned property. With the caveat that a summary cannot articulate the complexities discussed above, we summarize the three conditions as follows: (1) the condemned facility must have been operated on a not-for-monetary-profit basis; (2) the owner, exercising reasonable diligence, must have been unable to purchase a functionally equivalent replacement at a cost roughly equal to the fair market value of the taken facility; (3) the facility must have provided a benefit to the community that will not be as fully provided after the facility is taken. 17 Therefore, on remand for a new trial, whether these three conditions are met must be determined. 38 The order of the district court denying the Synod's motion for a new trial will be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial in accordance with this opinion. 39