Opinion ID: 4511189
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Just Compensation Case

Text: ¶26 The Town offers the Just Compensation Case as the second candidate for a bar against DSG's current claims. The issues a party may present in this type of case are even more constricted than that available in a right-to-take case. Consequently, so is its potential preclusive power. The condemnor pursues such a case when the owner does not accept the amount specified in the jurisdictional offer. It commences when the condemnor files a verified condemnation petition in the circuit court. Wis. Stat. § 32.06(7). The circuit court then assigns the matter to the chairperson of the county condemnation commissioners (the Chairperson). Id. The Chairperson selects three commissioners 16 No. 2017AP2352 whose task it is to serve as a commission to ascertain the compensation to be made for the taking of the property or rights in property sought to be condemned . . . . Wis. Stat. § 32.08(5). The statutes do not confer on the Commission authority to address any issue other than compensation. Upon the conclusion of its proceedings, the Commission file[s] its award with the clerk of the circuit court, specifying therein the property or interests therein taken and the compensation allowed the owner . . . . § 32.06(8). If either party is dissatisfied with the award, it may appeal the Commission's decision to the circuit court. § 32.06(10). ¶27 As with a right-to-take case (described above), the scope of this litigation is limited by statute. The case proceed[s] as an action in said court subject to all the provisions of law relating to actions brought therein, but the only issues to be tried shall be questions of title, if any, as provided by ss. 32.11 and 32.12 and the amount of just compensation to be paid by condemnor . . . . Wis. Stat. § 32.06(10). According to the statutes, therefore, the only issues the parties may litigate in a just compensation case are matters of title and the amount of money to be paid to the property owner. ¶28 But within that already narrow litigative universe, the statutes narrow the available issues even further by defining how the court (and the Commission) calculates the compensation due to the owner when, as here, there is a partial taking of property: In the case of a partial taking of property other than an easement, the compensation to be paid by the 17 No. 2017AP2352 condemnor shall be the greater of either the fair market value of the property taken as of the date of evaluation or the sum determined by deducting from the fair market value of the whole property immediately before the date of evaluation, the fair market value of the remainder immediately after the date of evaluation, assuming the completion of the public improvement . . . . Wis. Stat. § 32.09(6) (emphasis added). So not only must the circuit court follow a statutorily-prescribed method of calculating just compensation, it must also assume the completion of the public improvement when doing so. ¶29 Here, part of the public improvement was a new field road built to the same construction standards as the old field road. The condemnation petition says: The Town will replace the existing field road on the 12.13 acre parcel to be acquired with a new field road from Highway Z along the northern boundary of the Hauge Church Park boundary to the western boundary of the proposed Park in order to provide access to the Owner's other lands in the Town of Perry and for park-related purposes subject to the Hauge Church Park Regulations. This field road will be built to the same construction standards as the existing field road.[11] The purpose of the road was not just to provide DSG access to its remaining land. It was also to serve the Park, as provided by the Hauge Church Park Regulations. This had been the plan from the beginning of the project, as the Town made clear when it adopted the Resolution dedicating the new field road as the Hauge Parkway. The Resolution recites that the Town has acquired real estate necessary for the Park, and the Plan provides for the establishment of a Town Park Road . . . . It goes on to say that 11This language is identical to the jurisdictional offer the Town presented to DSG before commencing the Just Compensation Case. 18 No. 2017AP2352 it constructed the Parkway to provide access to the Park from County Highway Z for the benefit of the public, adjacent property owners and for park related purposes . . . . The recitals conclude with the observation that the final task is to formally dedicate the Parkway to establish a permanent right of way as contemplated by the Plan . . . . The operative part of the Resolution said Hauge Parkway shall hereby be dedicated to the public as a public Parkway and Town Park Road, with all rights of use to the public and the owners of the real estate contiguous to the Park, subject to the Town's regulation of establishment of driveways. ¶30 Based on this record, there can be no doubt that construction of the new field road——now known as the Hauge Parkway— —was part of the public improvements anticipated by the condemnation petition. The parties' stipulation also bears witness to this conclusion. They agreed that [t]he essential issue tried in the just compensation trial . . . assum[ed] completion of the project for which the Taking occurred, including the construction of the new field road under the terms of the Petition. (Emphasis added.) Therefore, Wis. Stat. § 32.09(6) required the circuit court to assume the new road would be constructed as provided by the condemnation petition. That is to say, even if DSG were convinced the Town would renege on its roadbuilding obligation, or perform it inadequately or short of the required standards, it could not have litigated that issue in the Just Compensation Case, even had it so desired. As a matter of law, the court must assume that after completion of the public 19 No. 2017AP2352 improvements, DSG would have access to its property over a field road built to the same construction standards as the existing field road. ¶31 That statutorily required assumption draws a sharp divide between claims DSG could and could not present in the Just Compensation Case. If DSG were to claim that the new field road— —constructed to the same standards as the old field road——would diminish the value of its remaining property, it would have to pursue that claim in the Just Compensation Case. Calculating compensation for the diminished value of the owner's remaining property is the core purpose of such cases. The Just Compensation Case, therefore, would bar a claim based on the diminished value of the remaining property here. ¶32 But that is not DSG's claim. In this case, DSG does not claim that a road built to the standards required by the condemnation petition would diminish the value of its remaining property. Instead, it assumes the Just Compensation Case properly calculated the value of the property rights it lost——assuming the Town builds the required road.12 Its claim here is that the Town 12In the Just Compensation Case, the Town argued on appeal that DSG's claim for increased compensation was premised on its loss of reasonable access from County Highway Z to its remaining property after the partial taking . . . . DSG Evergreen Family Ltd. P'ship, No. 2011AP492, unpublished slip op., ¶9. The court of appeals, however, said the Town does not have a meritorious argument to present. Id., ¶14. The court of appeals recognized that DSG's actual argument was that its loss of frontage on a town road eliminated its ability to develop residential lots on the remainder of its property. Specifically, the court of appeals said: 20 No. 2017AP2352 failed to build the required road. The purpose of this case is to compel the Town to fulfill the obligations that the circuit court, as a matter of law, had to assume the Town would honor when it calculated its award of just compensation. ¶33 With that understanding, the Town's argument that DSG already litigated the Town's faithfulness to its road-building obligation, or at least attempted to do so, in the Just Compensation Case does not follow either as a matter of logic or of law. The Town's argument in this regard depends on the significance of the engineering report DSG introduced in the Just Compensation Case. The Town paid particular attention to the report's introduction, which describes the scope of the ensuing analysis. In relevant part it says: DSG responds on this issue that at trial it was DSG's theory, which DSG asserts appears to have been accepted by the jury, that through the partial taking the Town took title to all of DSG's frontage property along public roads, thereby depriving DSG of the valuable opportunity to create up to six residential lots on its property, due to Dane County zoning requirements for public road frontage to support residential lots. DSG points to testimony from its engineer that a town road meeting the required [county zoning] standards would not fit within the footprint of the easement given by the Petition. Thus, DSG argues, authority cited by the Town regarding the quality and nature of changed access in eminent domain cases is irrelevant to this case, because DSG rested its claim on its alleged loss of the ability to use the remainder parcel for residential, as opposed to agricultural, purposes due to the alleged loss of road frontage as a result of the partial taking. Id., ¶15. 21 No. 2017AP2352 The Town of Perry has proposed that the existing farm road be abandoned and a new access be constructed within the limits of a proposed 66' wide easement as located by the Town of Perry. Per the Town, the new access could consist of either a public road or a private driveway. A public road was preliminarily designed to meet the applicable minimum standards. A private driveway was also preliminarily designed to meet applicable standards. The public road and private driveway designs were compared to the applicable Town, County, State and Federal standards. The private driveway was also compared to the existing farm road to see if it would provide an equivalent access. The intent of this report is to provide details of the analyses performed and to show how the designs either met or failed to meet the required standards. The report concludes that: Neither a public road nor a private driveway meeting all applicable Town, County, State and Federal requirements can be constructed entirely within the easement. In addition, a private driveway constructed within the easement is not equivalent to the existing farm road because of inferior intersection sight distance and maximum slope characteristics. The Town concludes that, because the report took issue with the Town's ability to build the road described in the condemnation petition, DSG actually litigated, or at least attempted to litigate, that issue. ¶34 What the engineering report actually did was opine on an issue the circuit court could not entertain. The report called into question whether the Town could build either a public road or a private driveway on the easement described in the condemnation petition that would conform to all applicable rules and 22 No. 2017AP2352 regulations.13 But that question, as a matter of law, was beyond the circuit court's authority to hear. Wisconsin Stat. § 32.09(6) says the circuit court had to assume, contrary to the report's conclusion, that the Town could and would provide the road as described. That is to say, § 32.09(6) precluded DSG from litigating the question raised by the engineering report in the Just Compensation Case.14 Even if submission of the report represents an attempt to do so, the claim preclusion doctrine does not recognize attempts at litigation. Instead, it asks only whether the final judgment in the Just Compensation Case actually adjudicated the claim, or could have adjudicated it had it been raised. See Teske, 387 Wis. 2d 213, ¶23. The Town does not argue the former, and the circuit court could not have done the latter without going beyond the boundaries set by § 32.09(6). Therefore, DSG's attempt to litigate an issue the circuit court was forbidden from entertaining (if that is what submission of the engineering report represents) cannot engage the claim preclusion doctrine. The report said the required road could not meet all of the 13 applicable public road standards without impacting area outside of the easement. That was problematic, the report reasoned, because the area outside of the easement is not within the control of [DSG] and [DSG] does not have permission to use lands beyond the easement. The report concluded that building a private driveway was problematic for the same reasons. This is not to say 14 that the circuit court could not have considered the engineering report as part of the Just Compensation Case. The report could have provided, for example, evidence bearing on the decreased value of DSG's remaining property——a proper consideration for a just compensation trial. 23 No. 2017AP2352 ¶35 We conclude that neither the Right-to-Take Case nor the Just Compensation Case bars DSG's Petition Standards Claim, its Town Road Claim, or its Damages Claim.15 But that is all we decide in this portion of our opinion. We note that the Town dedicated a significant amount of its brief to the construction standards required by the condemnation petition and how the new field road satisfies them. But that was the subject of the litigation the circuit court prematurely ended with its ruling on claim preclusion. Therefore, we express no opinion on the construction standards required by the condemnation petition, nor the current field road's compliance with them. We are simply concluding that claim preclusion does not serve as a bar to DSG's complaint.16