Opinion ID: 1664197
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Inverse-Condemnation Claim

Text: The landowners contend in their brief to this Court that the trial court erred in entering a summary judgment in favor of the City on their inverse-condemnation claim because, they say, they presented substantial evidence indicating that the City (1) dumped garbage on the their properties, (2) continues to allow methane to occupy their properties, and (3) installed PVC pipes on their properties to monitor the methane. However, the landowners' amended complaint alleges inverse condemnation due only to the installation and periodic monitoring of the PVC pipes. The complaint states: [T]he [City] has taken and/or damaged the property of the [landowners] without resorting to the powers of eminent domain in that the [City] has continually entered upon the [landowners'] property and placed devices upon [landowners'] property for the purposes of measuring said methane gas as appropriated to the [landowners'] property for such use. We thus disregard any theory based on dispersal of garbage on the landowners' properties. See Engel Mortgage Co. v. Triple K Lumber Co., 56 Ala.App. 337, 343, 321 So.2d 679, 684 (Civ.App.1975) (Summary judgment must be granted or denied on the record which is before the trial court at the time the motion is heard. A party cannot add new theories or advance new issues in order to gain reversal of the ruling on the motion for summary judgment.). The City argues that the inverse-condemnation claim is time-barred and that the landowners failed to establish substantial evidence of the essential elements of an unlawful-taking claim. Specifically, the City argues that the landowners failed to establish that the City's placement and periodic monitoring of the PVC pipes on the landowners' properties constitutes an unconstitutional taking of property for public use. Under Art. I, § 23, Alabama Constitution of 1901, and the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, a governmental entity is required to pay just compensation to a property owner when his or her property has been taken for public use. Ala. Const.1901, Art. I., § 23 (private property shall not be taken for, or applied to public use, unless just compensation be first made therefor); United States Const., amend. V (nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation). The City's placement and periodic monitoring of the PVC pipes on the landowners' properties is not an inverse condemnation of the landowners' properties because the methane monitoring is not performed for a public use, but for the benefit of the landowners. The City maintains other PVC pipes on the perimeter of the landfill to measure levels of methane migrating from the landfill, but it measures methane at the landowners' houses for the benefit of the landowners. All the landowners who continue to reside on the properties testified that they want the City to continue monitoring the methane. Moreover, the installation and monitoring of the PVC pipes does not constitute a taking of the landowners' properties. To be a taking for constitutional purposes, the governmental action must `constitute an actual, permanent invasion of the land, amounting to an appropriation of, and not merely an injury to, the property.' Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 428, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 73 L.Ed.2d 868 (1982) (citing Sanguinetti v. United States, 264 U.S. 146, 149, 44 S.Ct. 264, 68 L.Ed. 608 (1924)). Eleven of the 12 landowners consented to the installation and monitoring of the PVC pipes, and, as noted above, the landowners currently residing on the properties want the monitoring to continue. The City's installation and periodic monitoring of the pipes on the landowners' properties does not amount to an unconstitutional taking. Therefore, the trial court properly entered the summary judgment for the City on the landowners' inverse-condemnation claim.