Opinion ID: 2330662
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Substantive Due Process and Unlawful Taking

Text: The lower court found that the suspension or revocation of registration and removal of the license tags from a noncomplying vehicle constituted a taking of property without just compensation. As there is no evidence that any driver has had his registration revoked or his tags confiscated, our inquiry is limited to the facial validity of the VEIP. Both the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution and Article III, § 40 of the Constitution of Maryland prohibit the taking of private property for public use unless just compensation is paid to the owner. The fifth amendment applies to the states through the fourteenth amendment. We have said that Supreme Court decisions interpreting the fifth amendment's just compensation requirement are practically direct authority for our interpretation of the parallel provision in the Constitution of Maryland. King v. State Roads Comm'n of St. Hwy. Admin., 298 Md. 80, 83-84, 467 A.2d 1032 (1983). The standard for determining when a government regulation affecting the use of private property becomes a taking in the constitutional sense is well accepted. `If the owner affirmatively demonstrates that the legislature or administrative determination deprives him of all beneficial use of the property, the action will be held unconstitutional. But the restrictions imposed must be such that the property cannot be used for any reasonable purpose. It is not enough for the property owners to show that the ... action results in substantial loss or hardship.' Governor v. Exxon Corp., 279 Md. 410, 437, 372 A.2d 237 (1977), aff'd 437 U.S. 117, 98 S.Ct. 2207, 57 L.Ed.2d 91 (1978), quoting Baltimore City v. Borinsky, 239 Md. 611, 622, 212 A.2d 508 (1965). See also State v. Good Samaritan Hospital, 299 Md. 310, 321, 473 A.2d 892 (1984); Cider Barrel Mobile Home v. Eader, 287 Md. 571, 580, 414 A.2d 1246 (1980); Pitsenberger v. Pitsenberger, 287 Md. 20, 34, 410 A.2d 1052 (1980), appeal dismissed, 449 U.S. 807, 101 S.Ct. 52, 66 L.Ed.2d 10 (1980); Rockville v. Stone, 271 Md. 655, 663-64, 319 A.2d 536 (1974). If the registration of a vehicle is suspended or revoked because it has not acquired a Certificate of Compliance or Waiver, the owner is required to return the registration plates and card to the MVA. Transportation Article, § 13-708. This is not an unlawful taking of property in the constitutional sense. Nor does suspension, revocation or refusal to renew vehicle registration constitute a taking of the vehicle. Section 13-709 of the Transportation Article makes clear that [t]he cancellation, suspension, or revocation of the registration of a vehicle does not affect the status of the title to or any property rights in the vehicle. If the registration is invalid, the owner may not drive the vehicle. But the owner is not thereby deprived of all beneficial use of the vehicle; it may be sold. It is true that the MVA may require an emissions inspection certificate as a condition for transferring title to the vehicle, COMAR § 11.14.06.07F, or furnishing registration to the new owner, COMAR § 11.14.06.07D. Presumably this might reduce the value of the automobile to the new owner who would be required to make the expenditures necessary to bring the vehicle into compliance with the emissions standards. As it is, the purchaser of a used vehicle is also required to obtain a safety inspection certificate, Transportation Article § 23-107. These requirements may reduce the price that the seller can obtain for the vehicle. A reduction in value, however, does not per se constitute a taking. E.g., Andrus v. Allard, 444 U.S. 51, 64-66, 100 S.Ct. 318, 326-327, 62 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979); Md.-Nat'l Cap. P. & P. Comm'n v. Chadwick, 286 Md. 1, 405 A.2d 241 (1979). Therefore, we find that suspension or revocation of vehicle registration under the VEIP does not effect a taking in violation of either the state or the federal constitution. Appellees also urged the court below to find that the VEIP regulations exceeded the State's police power in violation of other substantive due process considerations. It appears from the lower court's oral opinion that it may have believed that the VEIP did not, as to the citizens of Carroll County, bear a real and substantial relation to the public end sought to be accomplished and was therefore arbitrary and unreasonable. Of course, where, as here, legislation is sustainable under the equal protection rational basis standard, a substantive due process challenge to the same law is unlikely to succeed. The standards are the same. As we said in Supermarkets Gen. Corp. v. State, 286 Md. 611, 618, 409 A.2d 250 (1970), appeal dismissed, 449 U.S. 801, 101 S.Ct. 45, 66 L.Ed.2d 5 (1980): [T]he companion contentions of equal protection and due process mesh. There is no practical distinction between the grounds on which the two contentions are argued, and determination of one will resolve the other. Moreover, it would not appear unreasonable to include Carroll County under VEIP simply because that county's relative contribution to emission reduction may constitute but a small fraction of the total air pollutants within the State. As the State pointed out in its brief, the plan is comprised of many measures, which individually may contribute only a little to the overall emission reductions. But it is the total plan which is important and each piece is vital to its effectiveness. The record discloses that in the Baltimore Region, even with VEIP in place, Maryland will have a nine ton per day shortfall in the emission reduction required to be achieved by 1987. At present, Maryland does not have any proposed regulations that will achieve this reduction. Thus, it is hard to fault the State's contention that when it is searching for new ways to obtain additional emission reductions, it would be irresponsible to eliminate the potential reductions gained by including Carroll County under the plan.