Opinion ID: 1235670
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Heading: The relevant constitutional and statutory provisions.

Text: 1. The constitutional provisions. The Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution pertinently provides that  [n]o person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution prohibits a state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment makes the Fifth Amendment applicable to the states and their political subdivisions. Chicago B. & Q. R.R. v. City of Chicago, 166 U.S. 226, 234-35, 17 S.Ct. 581, 584, 41 L.Ed. 979, 983-84 (1897). Article I, section 9 of the Iowa Constitution pertinently provides that [n]o person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. Article I, section 18 of the Iowa Constitution provides: Eminent domaindrainage ditches and levees. Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation first being made, or secured to be made to the owner thereof, as soon as the damages shall be assessed by a jury. 2. The statutory provisions. Iowa Code section 352.6 sets forth the procedure for obtaining an agricultural area designation. The application is to the county board of supervisors. Iowa Code § 352.6. This provision also prescribes the conditions under which a county board of supervisors may designate farmland as an agricultural area. Id. An agricultural area includes, among other activities, raising and storing crops, the care and feeding of livestock, the treatment or disposal of wastes resulting from livestock, and the creation of noise, odor, dust, or fumes. Iowa Code § 352.2(6). Iowa Code section 352.11(1)(a) provides the immunity from nuisance suits: A farm or farm operation located in an agricultural area shall not be found to be a nuisance regardless of the established date of operation or expansion of the agricultural activities of the farm or farm operation. This paragraph shall apply to a farm operation conducted within an agricultural area for six years following the exclusion of land within an agricultural area other than by withdrawal as provided in section 352.9. The immunity does not apply to a nuisance resulting from a violation of a federal statute, regulation, state statute, or rule. Iowa Code § 352.11(1)(b). Nor does the immunity apply to a nuisance resulting from the negligent operation of the farm or farm operation. Id. Additionally, there is no immunity from suits because of an injury or damage to a person or property caused by the farm or farm operation before the creation of the agricultural area. Id. Finally, there is no immunity from suit for an injury or damage sustained by the person [bringing suit] because of the pollution or change in condition of the waters of a stream, the overflowing of the person's land, or excessive soil erosion into another person's land, unless the injury or damage is caused by an act of God. Id. Iowa Code section 657.1 defines nuisance and provides for civil remedies: Whatever is injurious to health, indecent, or unreasonably offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as essentially to unreasonably interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property, is a nuisance, and a civil action by ordinary proceedings may be brought to enjoin and abate the same and to recover damages sustained on account thereof. Iowa Code section 657.2 is a laundry list of the conduct or conditions that are deemed to be a nuisance. Those that are relevant to nuisances resulting from farming and farm operations include: 1. The erecting, continuing, or using any building or other place for the exercise of any trade, employment, or manufacture, which, by occasioning noxious exhalations, unreasonably offensive smells, or other annoyances, becomes injurious and dangerous to the health, comfort, or property of individuals or the public. 2. The causing or suffering any offal, filth, or noisome substance to be collected or to remain in any place to the prejudice of others. .... 4. The corrupting or rendering unwholesome or impure the water of any river, stream, or pond, or unlawfully diverting the same from its natural course or state, to the injury or prejudice of others. Iowa Code § 657.2. Our cases recognize that the statutory definition of nuisance does not modify the common-law's application to nuisances. Weinhold v. Wolff, 555 N.W.2d 454, 459 (Iowa 1996). Rather, the statutory provisions are skeletal in form, and [we] look to the common law to fill in the gaps. Id. There are two kinds of nuisances: public and private. We cited the differences between the two in Guzman v. Des Moines Hotel Partners: A public or common nuisance is a species of catchall criminal offenses, consisting of an interference with the rights of a community at large. This may include anything from the obstruction of a highway to a public gaming house or indecent exposures. A private nuisance, on the other hand, is a civil wrong based on a disturbance of rights in land.... The essence of a private nuisance is an interference with the use and enjoyment of land. Examples include vibrations, blasting, destruction of crops, flooding, pollution, and disturbance of the comfort of the plaintiff, as by unpleasant odors, smoke, or dust. 489 N.W.2d 7, 10 (Iowa 1992) (citations omitted). We are dealing here with private nuisances. To fully understand the issues we are about to discuss, we think it would aid our analysis to distinguish between the concepts of private nuisance and trespass. We made this distinction in Ryan v. City of Emmetsburg: As distinguished from trespass, which is an actionable invasion of interests in the exclusive possession of land, a private nuisance is an actionable invasion of interests in the use and enjoyment of land. Trespass comprehends an actual physical invasion by tangible matter. An invasion which constitutes a nuisance is usually by intangible substances, such as noises or odors. 232 Iowa 600, 603, 4 N.W.2d 435, 439 (1942). In Ryan, we also distinguished between the concepts of nuisance and negligence. Negligence is a type of liability-forming conduct, for example, a failure to act reasonably to prevent harm. Id. In contrast, nuisance is a liability-producing condition. Id. Negligence may or may not accompany a nuisance; negligence, however, is not an essential element of nuisance. Id. If the condition constituting the nuisance exists, the person responsible for it is liable for resulting damages to others even though the person acted reasonably to prevent or minimize the deleterious effect of the nuisance. Id. C. The framework of analysis. As the neighbors point out, the federal and state constitutional provisions we set out earlier provide the following framework for a takings analysis: (1) Is there a constitutionally protected private property interest at stake? (2) Has this private property interest been taken by the government for public use? and (3) If the protected property interest has been taken, has just compensation been paid to the owner? The neighbors contend there is a constitutionally protected private right which the Board has taken from them without paying just compensation. That taking, the neighbors contend, results from the Board's approval of the agricultural area triggering the nuisance immunity in section 352.11(1)(a). The Board and the applicants concede the neighbors have received no compensation so we need not concern ourselves with the third step of the analysis: Has just compensation been paid to the owner?