Opinion ID: 1235670
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Is there a constitutionally protected private property interest at stake?

Text: a. Does the immunity provision in section 352.11(1)(a) against nuisance suits create a property right? Textually, the federal and Iowa Constitutions prohibit the government from taking property for public use without just compensation. Property for just compensation purposes means the group of rights inhering in the citizens' relation to the physical thing, as the right to possess, use and dispose of it. United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U.S. 373, 378, 65 S.Ct. 357, 359, 89 L.Ed. 311, 318 (1945). In short, property for just compensation purposes includes every sort of interest the citizen may possess. Id.; see also Liddick v. Council Bluffs, 232 Iowa 197, 221-22, 5 N.W.2d 361, 374 (1942) ([P]roperty is not alone the corporeal thing, but consists also in certain rights therein created and sanctioned by law, of which, with respect to land, the principal ones are the rights of use and enjoyment....). State law determines what constitutes a property right. Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith, 449 U.S. 155, 161, 101 S.Ct. 446, 451, 66 L.Ed.2d 358, 362 (1980). Thus, in this case, Iowa law defines what is property. The property interest at stake here is that of an easement, which is an interest in land. Over one hundred years ago, this court held that the right to maintain a nuisance is an easement. Churchill v. Burlington Water Co., 94 Iowa 89, 93, 62 N.W. 646, 647 (1895). Churchill defines an easement as a privilege without profit, which the owner of one neighboring tenement [has] of another, existing in respect of their several tenements, by which the servient owner is obliged to suffer, or not do something on his own land, for the advantage of the dominant owner. Id. Churchill's holding that the right to maintain a nuisance is an easement and its definition of an easement are consistent with the Restatement of Property: An easement is an interest in land which entitles the owner of the easement to use or enjoy land in the possession of another.... It may entitle him to do acts which he would otherwise not be privileged to do, or it may merely entitle him to prevent the owner of the land subject to the easement from doing acts which he would otherwise be privileged to do. An easement which entitles the owner to do acts which, were it not for the easement, he would not be privileged to do, is an affirmative easement.... [The easement] may entitle [its] owner to do acts on his own land which, were it not for the easement, would constitute a nuisance. Restatement of Property § 451 cmt. a, at 2911-12 (1944) (emphasis added). Another feature of easements is that easements run with the land: The land which is entitled to the easement or service is called a dominant tenement, and the land which is burdened with the servitude is called the servient tenement. Neither easements [n]or servitudes are personal, but they are accessory to, and run with, the land. The first with the dominant tenement, and the second with the servient tenement. Dawson v. McKinnon, 226 Iowa 756, 767, 285 N.W. 258, 263 (1939). Thus, the nuisance immunity provision in section 352.11(1)(a) creates an easement in the property affected by the nuisance (the servient tenement) in favor of the applicants' land (the dominant tenement). This is because the immunity allows the applicants to do acts on their own land which, were it not for the easement, would constitute a nuisance. For example, in their farming operations the applicants would be allowed to generate offensive smells on their property which without the easement would permit affected property owners to sue the applicants for nuisances. See Iowa Code § 352.2(6); see also Buchanan v. Simplot Feeders Ltd. Partnership, 134 Wash.2d 673, 952 P.2d 610, 615 (1998) (holding that Washington's Right-to-Farm Act gives farm quasi easement, against urban developments that subsequently locate next to farm, to continue nuisance activities) (dictum). b. Is an easement a protected property right subject to the requirements of the just compensation clauses of the federal and Iowa Constitutions? Easements are property interests subject to the just compensation requirements of the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. United States v. Welch, 217 U.S. 333, 339, 30 S.Ct. 527, 527, 54 L.Ed. 787, 788 (1910). Easements are also property interests subject to the just compensation requirements of our own Constitution. Simkins v. City of Davenport, 232 N.W.2d 561, 566 (Iowa 1975).