Opinion ID: 1888691
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: exercise of police power

Text: In regard to the merits of Strom's appeal, both the City and the LENRD contend that the conservation measures imposed upon Strom are a proper exercise of the LENRD's police power to effect land-use regulations. Strom, on the other hand, asserts that the ordered conservation measures have taken or damaged his property for a public use, and thus, that the LENRD and the City must pay him just compensation. Article I, § 21, of the Nebraska Constitution provides that the property of no person shall be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation therefor. Further, the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, made applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment, provides: [N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. See Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978), rehearing denied 439 U.S. 883, 99 S.Ct. 226, 58 L.Ed.2d 198. Strom seeks damages in inverse condemnation from the City and the LENRD pursuant only to his state constitutional right. Nebraska's constitutional right to just compensation includes compensation for damages occasioned in the exercise of eminent domain and, therefore, is broader than the federal right which is limited only to compensation for a taking. The words or damaged in Neb. Const. art. I, § 21, include all actual damages resulting from the exercise of the right of eminent domain which diminish the market value of private property. Walkenhorst v. State, 253 Neb. 986, 573 N.W.2d 474 (1998); Pieper v. City of Scottsbluff, 176 Neb. 561, 126 N.W.2d 865 (1964). One whose property is damaged by the construction of a public improvement by the state or a subdivision thereof, has been damaged for a public use within the meaning of Article I, section 21, of the Constitution. Baum v. County of Scotts Bluff, 169 Neb. 816, 822, 101 N.W.2d 455, 461 (1960). Notwithstanding the difference between the federal and the state constitutions, this court has analyzed the state constitutional issue of whether there has been a regulatory taking or damage for a public use by treating federal constitutional case law and our state constitutional case law as coterminous. See, e.g., Whitehead Oil Co. v. City of Lincoln, 245 Neb. 680, 515 N.W.2d 401 (1994). Inverse condemnation is a shorthand description for a landowner suit to recover just compensation for a governmental taking of the landowner's property without the benefit of condemnation proceedings. Lockard v. Nebraska Pub. Power Dist., 249 Neb. 971, 546 N.W.2d 824 (1996); Whitehead Oil Co. v. City of Lincoln, supra . The question of what constitutes a taking for purposes of the Fifth Amendment has proved to be a problem of considerable difficulty. While this Court has recognized that the Fifth Amendment's guarantee [is] designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole,... this Court, quite simply, has been unable to develop any set formula for determining when justice and fairness require that economic injuries caused by public action be compensated by the government, rather than remain disproportionately concentrated on a few persons.... In engaging in these essentially ad hoc, factual inquiries, the Court's decisions have identified several factors that have particular significance. The economic impact of the regulation on the claimant and, particularly, the extent to which the regulation has interfered with distinct investment-backed expectations are, of course, relevant considerations.... So, too, is the character of the governmental action. A taking may more readily be found when the interference with property can be characterized as a physical invasion by government... than when interference arises from some public program adjusting the benefits and burdens of economic life to promote the common good. (Citations omitted.) Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. at 123-24, 98 S.Ct. 2646. [L]and-use regulation does not effect a taking if it `substantially advance[s] legitimate state interests' and does not `den[y] an owner economically viable use of his land.' Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U.S. 825, 834, 107 S.Ct. 3141, 97 L.Ed.2d 677 (1987), quoting Agins v. Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 100 S.Ct. 2138, 65 L.Ed.2d 106 (1980). See, also, Whitehead Oil Co. v. City of Lincoln, supra . The distinction, therefore, which must be made between an appropriate exercise of the police power and an improper exercise of eminent domain is whether the requirement has some reasonable relationship or nexus to the use to which the property is being made or is merely being used as an excuse for taking property simply because at that particular moment the landowner is asking the city for some license or permit. Simpson v. City of North Platte, 206 Neb. 240, 245, 292 N.W.2d 297, 301 (1980), quoted in Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 398, 114 S.Ct. 2309, 129 L.Ed.2d 304 (1994) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (referring to Simpson's `reasonable relationship' as `rough proportionality' ). In other words, the distinction between the enforcement of a regulation which gives rise to an inverse condemnation suit and one in which the governmental entity is acting pursuant to its police power is that in the exercise of eminent domain, property or an easement therein is taken from the owner and applied to public use because the use or enjoyment of such property or easement is beneficial to the public. In contrast, in the exercise of police power, the owner is instead denied the unrestricted use or enjoyment of his property, or his property is taken from him, because his use or enjoyment of such property is injurious to the public welfare. See 1 Julius L. Sackman, Nichols on Eminent Domain § 1.42[2] (rev.3d ed.1998). However, even if a government actor is regulating within proper police powers bounds, there are two discrete categories of regulatory actions that are compensable without a case-specific inquiry into the public interest and concomitant regulatory requirement nexus. One is where the regulation denies a landowner all economically beneficial or productive use of his or her land. See Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992). The other is where the landowner suffers a physical invasion of his or her property. See Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 73 L.Ed.2d 868 (1982).