Opinion ID: 2585381
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 25

Heading: Taking for Private Use

Text: So too I agree with the majority's view that this property is not only taken, but taken for private use. This is the feature of the case which most directly invokes our state constitution's express prohibition against taking private property for private use. As the majority observes, the Washington State Constitution explicitly prohibits taking private property solely for a private usewith or without compensation. Majority at 195 (emphasis added). However, I would qualify, the same constitution equally prohibits a taking for even a partially private use. In re Petition of City of Seattle, 96 Wash.2d 616, 627, 638 P.2d 549 (1981); State ex rel. Wash. State Convention & Trade Ctr. v. Evans, 136 Wash.2d 811, 829-36, 966 P.2d 1252 (1998) (Sanders, J., dissenting). Notwithstanding, the appropriation here is not directed to a partially private destination, but a wholly private one. I therefore concur. JOHNSON, J. (dissenting). Although I agree with some of the majority's analysis, I cannot support its conclusion because of three critical flaws in its reasoning. First, the majority improperly focuses its Gunwall [1] analysis on the remedy provided by the Washington State Constitution, while what is at issue here is only the threshold question of whether a taking has occurred, a determination all parties agree is controlled by this court's decision in Guimont v. Clarke, 121 Wash.2d 586, 595, 854 P.2d 1 (1993). Next, the majority states that a right of first refusal is a right of property, despite the fact that decisions of this court and the Court of Appeals have concluded it is not. E.g., Robroy Land Co. v. Prather, 95 Wash.2d 66, 70-72, 622 P.2d 367 (1980). Finally, the majority disregards the requirement that even if a property right is implicated, under a facial challenge of the type presented here no taking occurs unless the mere enactment of the statute denies the property owner all economically viable use of his or her land. Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 602, 854 P.2d 1. The parties agree our first task is to determine whether the enactment of chapter 59.23 RCW constitutes a regulatory taking. See Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 605, 854 P.2d 1 (under facial challenge, party must show mere enactment of statute works a taking). The parties also concede Guimont provides the analytical framework for this determination. Therefore, if we conclude under Guimont that a facial taking has occurred, then it is appropriate to move to the next issue: whether article I, section 16 (amend.9) of the Washington State Constitution provides a greater remedy than the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. If, however, Guimont tells us no taking has occurred, the question of whether the state constitution might provide a more expansive remedy should be left for another day. Under Guimont's threshold inquiry, we ask whether the regulation destroys or derogates any fundamental attribute of property ownership: including the right to possess; to exclude others; ... to dispose of property... [or] to make some economically viable use of the property. Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 602, 854 P.2d 1 (citing Presbytery of Seattle v. King County, 114 Wash.2d 320, 329-30, 787 P.2d 907 (1990); Sintra, Inc. v. City of Seattle, 119 Wash.2d 1, 14 n. 6, 829 P.2d 765 (1992); Robinson v. City of Seattle, 119 Wash.2d 34, 49-50, 830 P.2d 318 (1992); Lucas v. S. Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1015-19, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992)). In addition, when, as here, an enactment is challenged on its face, we must ask whether the statute denies the owner of all economically viable use of the property. Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 605, 854 P.2d 1; accord Presbytery, 114 Wash.2d at 334, 787 P.2d 907; Orion Corp. v. State, 109 Wash.2d 621, 656, 747 P.2d 1062 (1987); see also Lucas, 505 U.S. at 1016 & n. 6, 112 S.Ct. 2886; Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass'n v. DeBenedictis, 480 U.S. 470, 495, 107 S.Ct. 1232, 94 L.Ed.2d 472 (1987); Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass'n, 452 U.S. 264, 296, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 69 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981). Of course, petitioners can only prevail on their takings claim if a right of first refusal is property. See Penn Cent. Transp. Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104, 124-25, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978) (describing dismissal of takings claims because the interests involved were not property) (citing United States v. Willow River Power Co., 324 U.S. 499, 65 S.Ct. 761, 89 L.Ed. 1101 (1945); United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co., 229 U.S. 53, 33 S.Ct. 667, 57 L.Ed. 1063 (1913)); see also William B. Stoebuck, Nontrespassory Takings in Washington § 1.7, at 7 (1980) (noting the first question in a takings analysis is to determine if that which has been `taken' is `property'). Whether a property interest exists for the purposes of a takings analysis is determined by reference to state law. E.g., Phillips v. Washington Legal Found., 524 U.S. 156, 164, 118 S.Ct. 1925, 141 L.Ed.2d 174 (1998). Our cases have unquestionably established that not only is a right of first refusal not a fundamental attribute of property ownership, it is not a property right at all. Robroy, 95 Wash.2d at 70-72, 622 P.2d 367; see also Bennett Veneer Factors, Inc. v. Brewer, 73 Wash.2d 849, 853, 856, 441 P.2d 128 (1968); Old Nat'l Bank v. Arneson, 54 Wash.App. 717, 721, 776 P.2d 145 (1989); Feider v. Feider, 40 Wash.App. 589, 592, 699 P.2d 801 (1985). [2] The majority attempts to distinguish our holding in Robroy, but the distinction is unpersuasive. While the issue in Robroy was presented in the context of the rule against perpetuities, its holding that a right of first refusal is not a property interest is equally applicable in this case. This conclusion is consistent with cases analyzing a right of first refusal in other contexts. For example, a right of first refusal does not implicate the real property statute of frauds, nor does it run with the land for the purpose of enforcing an equitable servitude. See Old Nat'l Bank, 54 Wash.App. at 722, 776 P.2d 145; Feider, 40 Wash.App. at 593, 699 P.2d 801. Because no interest in land is created by a right of first refusal[,] only personal rights are affected. Old Nat'l Bank, 54 Wash.App. at 721, 776 P.2d 145 (emphasis added). [3] Furthermore, although Robroy addressed a right of first refusal in the hands of a grantee, this is irrelevant for purposes of characterizing the interest as real or personal property. If a grant of a right of first refusal does not create a real property interest in a grantee, then a fortiori legislation affecting a grantor's ability to convey such an option does not take any real property interest from the grantor. One cannot take what was never there to begin with. Even if, however, the statute implicated a fundamental attribute of property ownership, this does not mean a taking has occurred. E.g., Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 605, 854 P.2d 1 (regulation must destroy fundamental attribute of property ownership); Orion, 109 Wash.2d at 664, 747 P.2d 1062 (addressing whether fundamental attributes of ownership have been extinguished). Not every infringement on a fundamental attribute of property ownership necessarily constitutes a `taking'. Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 603 n. 6, 854 P.2d 1 (emphasis added) (citing Presbytery, 114 Wash.2d at 333 n. 21, 787 P.2d 907); see also PruneYard Shopping Ctr. v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 82-83, 100 S.Ct. 2035, 64 L.Ed.2d 741 (1980); Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 48, 80 S.Ct. 1563, 4 L.Ed.2d 1554 (1960) (contrasting total destruction by the Government of all value with a mere `consequential incidence' of a valid regulatory measure); Garneau v. City of Seattle, 147 F.3d 802, 818-19 (9 th Cir. 1998) (Williams, J., concurring). [F]acial challenges to the economic impact of land use regulations require the landowner to prove the regulation denies all economically viable use of the owner's property.... Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 602, 854 P.2d 1 (emphasis added); see also Suitum v. Tahoe Reg'l Planning Agency, 520 U.S. 725, 736 & n. 10, 117 S.Ct. 1659, 137 L.Ed.2d 980 (1997) (citing Keystone, 480 U.S. at 495, 107 S.Ct. 1232; Hodel, 452 U.S. at 297, 101 S.Ct. 2352). The majority erroneously omits this requirement in setting forth the standards for a facial taking. Majority at 187. For example, the majority relies on Presbytery for the premise that the destruction of a fundamental attribute of property ownership, by itself, may serve as the basis for a facial taking. Majority at 187 (citing Presbytery, 114 Wash.2d at 330, 787 P.2d 907). Presbytery makes clear, however, that such a challenge cannot succeed unless the property owner also establishes that all economical use of his or her property is eviscerated. Presbytery, 114 Wash.2d at 333-34, 787 P.2d 907. In Guimont, we were faced with a facial takings challenge to the Mobile Home Relocation Assistance Act, chapter 59.21 RCW. That statute required the owner of a mobile home park to pay relocation assistance to the park's tenants if the owner wants to close the park or convert it to another use. Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 591, 854 P.2d 1 (citing Laws of 1990, ch. 171, § 2(1)). Despite the obvious economic impacts of this regulation, this court rejected a facial challenge by mobile home park owners because they could not establish that the regulation of their property's use under the Act denies them all economically viable use of their property. Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 606, 854 P.2d 1. Whereas Guimont involved an actual monetary payment by the park owners, this case involves a far less invasive regulation. Both this court and the Court of Appeals have recognized the minimal economic impact of a right of first refusal. See, e.g., Robroy, 95 Wash.2d at 70, 622 P.2d 367 (a right of first refusal did not create a restraint on alienation because [t]he marketability of the property remain[ed] unfettered. ) (emphasis added); Feider, 40 Wash.App. at 593-94, 699 P.2d 801 (grant of right of first refusal did not touch and concern the land because there was nothing in the record to indicate the value of the land of the respective parties here was increased or decreased or even affected by the agreement. (emphasis added)). Indeed, we have previously suggested that the creation of a right of first refusal may lead to a more favorable economic result for petitioners: The interference with alienation present in a requirement that a designated person be afforded a reasonable opportunity to meet any offer received from a third person by an owner desirous of selling is so slight that the major policies furthered by freedom of alienation are not infringed to a degree which requires invalidation. Under these circumstances, the owner has two potential buyers at the same price and is assured of a reasonably prompt culmination of the sale. Such restraints are, therefore, valid. Robroy, 95 Wash.2d at 70-71, 622 P.2d 367 (emphasis added) (quoting Restatement of Property § 413 cmt. on subsection (1) (1944)). This conclusion is compelling in the context of a facial challenge such as that presented in this case because no evidence of negative economic impact has been established. Applying this analytical framework established by our case law is also consistent with a recent analogous case that rejected a takings challenge under a similar statute. See Greenfield Country Estates Tenants Ass'n v. Deep, 423 Mass. 81, 87, 666 N.E.2d 988 (1996). [4] The court held because the Massachusetts law (like the Washington statute) did not restrict transfers of property by gift, devise, or operation of law, or require property to be sold on terms less favorable than could be received from a third party, the owner's freedom to transfer was minimally limited. The statutory right of first refusal cannot be said materially to affect the marketability of the property so as to deprive it of economic value. We do not speculate as to the validity of [defendants'] unsubstantiated assertions that the restriction results in a diminution in property value or reduces the pool of prospective purchasers. We note only that mere conditioning the sale of the property to a right of first refusal does not amount to a taking. Greenfield Country Estates, 423 Mass. at 87, 666 N.E.2d 988 (citing Andrus v. Allard, 444 U.S. 51, 66, 100 S.Ct. 318, 62 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979)). This reasoning mirrors our jurisprudence on facial regulatory takings and demonstrates that regardless of whether a successful as applied or due process challenge might be brought in the future, the mere enactment of chapter 59.23 RCW does not deprive petitioners of all economically viable use of their land. The fact this case presents a facial challenge to a regulatory taking also renders inapplicable the majority's argument that a taking may occur when property is statutorily transferred. Majority at 194 (emphasis omitted). While this may be true, the cases cited by the majority for this premise all involve as applied challenges where defined pieces of property were allegedly taken. Majority at 194 (citing Brazil v. City of Auburn, 93 Wash.2d 484, 490-91, 610 P.2d 909 (1980); Highline Sch. Dist. No. 401 v. Port of Seattle, 87 Wash.2d 6, 17, 548 P.2d 1085 (1976); Ackerman v. Port of Seattle, 55 Wash.2d 400, 408, 329 P.2d 210, 348 P.2d 664, overruled on other grounds by Highline Sch. Dist. No. 401, 87 Wash.2d 6, 548 P.2d 1085). All three of these cases also involved physical invasions and not regulatory takings. Both Highline and Ackerman dealt with aircraft flights through private airspace over parcels near the Seattle Tacoma International Airport, while Brazil dealt with the City of Auburn's construction of a public roadway on private land. Highline, 87 Wash.2d at 7, 548 P.2d 1085; Ackerman, 55 Wash.2d at 402-03, 348 P.2d 664; Brazil, 93 Wash.2d at 485, 610 P.2d 909. Physical invasions are treated very differently than regulatory takings. E.g., Presbytery, 114 Wash.2d at 335, 787 P.2d 907; Penn Cent. Transp. Co., 438 U.S. at 124, 98 S.Ct. 2646. These cases simply do not provide the majority the authority to abandon the facial challenge and regulatory takings jurisprudence developed over the past two decades by this court. [S]ome regulations, by their very nature, are just not subject to facial attack on takings grounds. S. Pac. Transp. Co. v. City of Los Angeles, 922 F.2d 498, 506 n. 9 (9 th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 943, 112 S.Ct. 382, 116 L.Ed.2d 333 (1991). Because no property has been taken from petitioners by the enactment of chapter 59.23 RCW and because petitioners cannot demonstrate the economic harm or physical invasion that must be shown in a facial challenge, I would conclude this statute is not a taking. I would, therefore, not reach the question of whether article I, section 16 (amend.9) of the Washington State Constitution may, in some circumstances, provide greater protection than the Fifth Amendment. I would affirm the Court of Appeals and the superior court on the ground that no unconstitutional facial taking has occurred. SMITH, J., concurs. TALMADGE, J. (dissenting). Today, the Washington Supreme Court strikes down legislation designed to assist the vulnerable, and fundamentally alters the judicial treatment of the police power, an attribute of government long-recognized everywhere as essential to our fundamental notions of ordered liberty. Today, the Washington Supreme Court revives the Lochner [1] era, when a conservative United States Supreme Court struck down measure after measure of state legislation designed to ease the burdens of the oppressed and those in need. Today, the Washington Supreme Court returns to the days when property rights were considered more important than human rights. It is bitterly ironic that this should happen in Washington. This state was an early leader in passing laws banning child labor, setting minimum wages for women and children, promoting mine safety, and limiting hours an employer could require employees to work all long before federal legislation on the same subjects. In the early 20th Century, our predecessors on this Court upheld such legislation against the challenges of the powerful in society. The spirit that animated those days has been displaced in this case by a new property rights absolutism that distorts the relationship between the legislative and judicial branches, and usurps for the Washington Supreme Court the role of final arbiter of what is good social legislation. By unsoundly equating any regulation of land with a taking of land by eminent domain, the majority pushes the parameters of Washington's eminent domain law far beyond anything envisioned by our constitutional framers or the framers of any other state constitution. The majority departs from the traditional elements of takings law we articulated in Guimont v. Clarke, 121 Wash.2d 586, 854 P.2d 1 (1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1176, 114 S.Ct. 1216, 127 L.Ed.2d 563 (1994), in favor of a novel interpretation of art. I, § 16 of our Constitution by suggesting even a minor regulation of property may be a taking. Because the mobile home statute in question here does not effect a taking of the mobile home park owners' property, and because the majority's opinion calls into question numerous other appropriate regulations of property pursuant to the State's well-settled police powers, I agree with Justice Johnson's dissent. I write separately to express my concern for what the majority's disposition of this case does to the police power in Washington as it has been exercised since 1889.
At the outset, this facial challenge to the Mobile Home Parks Resident Ownership Act, chapter 59.23 RCW (the Act), relates to legislation enacted pursuant to the police power of the State of Washington. The majority has appropriately described how the Act operates and the facial constitutional challenge the petitioners have made to the statutory enactment. But, in conjunction with its flawed interpretation, the majority neglects to discuss the practical reality of mobile home life. Mobile homes are not mobile. The term is a vestige of earlier times when mobile homes were more like today's recreational vehicles. Today mobile homes are designed to be placed permanently on a pad and maintained there for life. Roger Colton & Michael Sheehan, The Problem of Mass Evictions in Mobile Home Parks Subject to Conversion, 8-SPRING, J. AFFORDABLE HOUSING & COMMUNITY DEV. L. 231, 232 (1999). Once `planted' and `plugged in,' they are not easily relocated. Miller v. Valley Forge Vill., 43 N.Y.2d 626, 403 N.Y.S.2d 207, 374 N.E.2d 118, 120 (1978). Moreover, In most instances a mobile home owner in a park is required to remove the wheels and anchor the home to the ground in order to facilitate connections with electricity, water and sewerage. Thus it is only at substantial expense that a mobile home can be removed from a park with no ready place to go. Malvern Courts, Inc. v. Stephens, 275 Pa.Super. 518, 419 A.2d 21, 23 (1980). Physically moving a double- or triple-wide mobile home involves unsealing; unroofing the roofed-over seams; mechanically separating the sections; disconnecting plumbing and other utilities; removing carports, porches, and similar fixtures; and lifting the home off its foundation or supports. Colton & Sheehan, supra, 232. Costs of relocation, assuming relocation is even possible for older units, can range as high as $10,000. Id. It is the immobility of mobile homes that accounts for most of the problems and abuses endured by mobile home tenants. Luther Zeigler, Statutory Protections for Mobile Home Park TenantsThe New York Model, 14 REAL ESTATE L.J. 77, 78 (1985). The effects on mobile home owners (home owners) faced with moving because mobile home park owners (park owners) want to convert a mobile home park to another use can be devastating. A home owner owns the mobile home, but only rents the land on which it sits. Closure and conversion of a mobile home park force the owner either to move, or to abandon what may be his most valuable equity investment, a mobile home, to the developer's bulldozer. Displacement from a mobile home park can mean economic ruin for a mobile home owner. Karl Manheim, Tenant Eviction Protection and the Takings Clause, 1989 WIS. L. REV. 925, 956 n.179 (1989). See Granat v. Keasler, 99 Wash.2d 564, 663 P.2d 830 (discussing similar problems for owners of houseboats renting moorage), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1018, 104 S.Ct. 549, 78 L.Ed.2d 723 (1983). Availability of affordable housing is one of the goals of the Growth Management Act. RCW 36.70A.020(4). Mobile homes present affordable housing options for large segments of society. The President's Commission on Housing declared: [M]anufactured housing is a significant source of affordable housing for American families, particularly first-time homebuyers, the elderly, and low- and moderate-income families.... Almost all local and state regulations, however, discriminate against manufactured housing. These discriminatory policies cause communities to ignore and forgo a promising opportunity to narrow the gap between supply and demand for affordable housing. Molly A. Sellman, Equal Treatment of Housing: A Proposed Model State Code for Manufactured Housing, 20 URB. L. 73, 74 n.3 (1988) (quoting THE REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON HOUSING 56, 85 (1982)). The human dimension to mobile home ownership is considerable. Mobile home residents are typically poorer than the average rental household, with incomes lower by one-third. Many home owners are elderly residents with friends, contacts, and community that have centered on the park for years, if not decades. Colton & Sheehan, supra, at 233. The costs to the community in terms of providing public housing for evicted mobile home owners who are low-income families or the elderly, for example, are enormous. Exacerbating the problem is the scarcity of mobile home parks: Some towns exclude mobile homes altogether; others limit how long the homes can stay in town. Most frequently, municipalities confine mobile homes to privately-owned mobile home parks and restrict the number of parks permitted in the town. Consequently, there is a major shortage of space for mobile homes. Thus the owner who needs to rent a lot for his mobile home has no choice but to enter the park owner's market in which the demand for space far exceeds the supply of available lots. Thomas G. Moukawsher, Mobile Home Parks and Connecticut's Regulatory Scheme: A Takings Analysis, 17 CONN. L. REV. 811, 814-15 (1985) (footnotes omitted). See Jay M. Zitter, Annotation, Validity of Zoning or Building Regulations Restricting Mobile Homes or Trailers to Established Mobile Home or Trailer Parks, 17 A.L.R.4th 106 (1982). Not surprisingly, abuses abound in this seller's market: Park owners have been criticized for charging exorbitant entrance fees and for claiming from their tenants miscellaneous, and often arbitrary, charges, in addition to fees for extra cars, children, pets, or guests. Most important, the combination of short leases, entrance fees, and prohibitions of on-the-lot sales have allowed some park owners to make substantial profits by evicting home owners and their homes. Because of the space shortage, many evicted mobile home owners have lost their investments. Park owners have not allowed the homes to be sold on their land, and there are few, if any, other places to put them. Consequently, the evicted homes are worth much less when offered for sale. Moukawsher, supra, at 815 (footnotes omitted). The Maryland Court of Appeals in 1980 detailed abuses afflicting mobile home tenants: Despite the rising popularity of relatively low cost mobile homes, many communities have enacted zoning regulations which exclude them entirely or severely limit the areas where they may be placed, frequently restricting them to mobile home parks. Thus, the mobile home owner is compelled to rent space from the park owners who, because of the limited availability of space and the high cost of relocation, are able to dictate unfavorable rental terms and conditions. As a result, mobile home owners often have been forced to buy mobile homes from the park owner in order to obtain a site, to pay excessive entrance fees, to buy specified commodities from specified dealers, to pay the park owner a commission on the sale of the mobile home, or, upon sale, to remove and pay an exit fee. Cider Barrel Mobile Home Court v. Eader, 287 Md. 571, 414 A.2d 1246, 1248 (1980). Manifestly, home owners have markedly less bargaining powerin fact, they have none, as upon eviction they become homeless and may lose what is likely their most valuable asset, their homesthan do park owners. As a consequence, home owners are not in a position individually to bargain at arm's length with their landlords, the park owners.
In response to these inequities and the abuses home owners often suffer, and in an attempt to bolster the home owners' bargaining position, the Legislature enacted the Mobile Home Relocation Assistance Act in 1989, chapter 59.21 RCW, requiring the owner of a mobile home park to pay relocation assistance to the park's tenants if the owner wanted to close the park or convert it to other use. [2] The law provided $4,500 relocation assistance for single-wide mobile homes and $7,500 relocation assistance for double-wide mobile homes. Laws of 1990, ch. 171, § 2(1). We struck down the law as a violation of the park owners' substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, but we also held the law was not a taking of property without just compensation. Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 614, 854 P.2d 1. Apparently in response to Guimont and as a reflection of continuing concern about the plight of mobile home owners, the Legislature enacted chapter 59.23 RCW, expressing its findings and intent as follows: The legislature finds that mobile home parks provide a significant source of homeownership for many Washington residents, but increasing rents and low vacancy rates, as well as the pressure to convert mobile home parks to other uses, increasingly make mobile home park living insecure for mobile home owners. The legislature also finds that many homeowners who reside in mobile home parks are also those residents most in need of reasonable security in the siting of their manufactured homes. It is the intent of the legislature to encourage and facilitate the conversion of mobile home parks to resident ownership in the event of a voluntary sale of the park. RCW 59.23.005. [3] The bill passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives without a single dissenting vote in either body. The House Bill Report of April 8, 1993 states: This is a compromise worked out between park owners and tenants to address mobile home landlord-tenant issues. Agreement has been reached on such issues as removing problem tenants from the park, eliminating no-cause evictions with 12 months notice, allowing tenants to purchase parks when the owner is selling to other than a relative, and allowing park owners to purchase mobile homes for sale by the tenant to other than relatives. This bill will improve the relationship between good tenants and park owners, and will better enable the few problem tenants and the few problem park owners to be addressed more effectively. H.B. Rep. ESSB 5482 (Wash.1993) (emphasis added). According to the same bill report, there was no testimony against the bill, while two representatives of the Washington Mobile Home Park Owners spoke in support of the bill. Two years later the park owners brought the present lawsuit claiming chapter 59.23 RCW is unconstitutional.
In agreeing with the park owners, the majority says: The instant case falls within the rule that would generally find a taking where a regulation deprives the owner of a fundamental attribute of property ownership. Majority op. at 194. For the majority, any regulation affecting any fundamental attribute of property is a taking. Thus does the majority facilely dispose of 130 years of American regulatory taking jurisprudence, beginning with Pumpelly v. Green Bay & Miss. Canal Co., 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 166, 20 L.Ed. 557 (1871), and continuing to the present day: Almost from the inception of our regulatory takings doctrine, we have held that whether a regulation of property goes so far that there must be an exercise of eminent domain and compensation to sustain the act ... depends upon the particular facts. Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 413[, 43 S.Ct. 158, 67 L.Ed. 322] (1922); accord, Keystone Bituminous Coal, supra, at 473-474[, 107 S.Ct. 1232]. Consistent with this understanding, we have described determinations of liability in regulatory takings cases as `essentially ad hoc, factual inquiries,' Lucas, supra, at 1015[, 112 S.Ct. 2886] (quoting Perm Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104, 124[, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631] (1978)), requiring complex factual assessments of the purposes and economic effects of government actions. City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687, 720, 119 S.Ct. 1624, 143 L.Ed.2d 882 (1999). No factual inquiries or complex assessments beset the majority and deter it from formulating its unprecedented rule. The majority's analysis is flawed from the outset.
Without saying why it is necessary to do so, the majority undertakes an analysis pursuant to State v. Gunwall, 106 Wash.2d 54, 720 P.2d 808 (1986). The original intent of a Gunwall analysis was to determine whether the constitution of the State of Washington should be considered as extending broader rights to its citizens than does the United States Constitution. Id. at 61, 720 P.2d 808. The majority looks at the first sentence of WASH. CONST. art. I, § 16Private property shall not be taken for private use [4] and concludes our constitution provides more protection for private property owners than does the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. How the majority gets there is a monumental puzzle, because the Fifth Amendment does not mention private use. The Fifth Amendment speaks only of public use: nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. The majority tells us that we have taken a much more restrictive view of the meaning of public use than has the United States Supreme Court. Majority op. at 189. The majority is quite right. Compare, e.g., In re Petition of Seattle, 96 Wash.2d 616, 627, 638 P.2d 549 (1981) (holding a beneficial use is not necessarily a public use), with Haw. Hous. Auth. v. Midkiff, 467 U.S. 229, 242, 104 S.Ct. 2321, 81 L.Ed.2d 186 (1984) (public use requirement coterminous with the scope of a sovereign's police powers.). [5] But the term public use does not appear in the first sentence of art. I, § 16, the provision the majority says is key to its analysis. It would have been a more revealing and more fruitful exercise for the majority to have compared the constitutional meaning of the sentence it relies on in our constitutionPrivate property shall not be taken for private usewith the United States Supreme Court's treatment of that concept. In 1896, the Court addressed the question of takings for private use and said categorically: The taking by a state of the private property of one person or corporation, without the owner's consent, for the private use of another, is not due process of law, and is a violation of the fourteenth article of amendment of the constitution of the United States. M. Pac. Ry. Co. v. State of Neb., 164 U.S. 403, 417, 17 S.Ct. 130, 41 L.Ed. 489 (1896). This proposition became so well entrenched in federal jurisprudence that the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was able to say 100 years later: It is overwhelmingly clear from more than a century of precedent that the government violates the Constitution when it takes private property for private use.... Armendariz v. Penman, 75 F.3d 1311, 1320-21 (9th Cir.1996). Indeed, there is a primeval notion in American law to the effect that the taking of private property for private use is not even a permissible action of government. In a famous passage, Justice Samuel Chase said in Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386, 388, 1 L.Ed. 648 (1798): An ACT of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority. The obligation of a law in governments established on express compact, and on republican principles, must be determined by the nature of the power, on which it is founded. A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean. A law that punished a citizen for an innocent action, or, in other words, for an act, which, when done, was in violation of no existing law; a law that destroys, or impairs, the lawful private contracts of citizens; a law that makes a man a Judge in his own cause; or a law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with SUCH powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it. The genius, the nature, and the spirit, of our State Governments, amount to a prohibition of such acts of legislation; and the general principles of law and reason forbid them. Justice Chase was speaking here not of constitutional law, but of natural law, of powers no government may exercise because general principles of law and reason forbid them. [6] The aphorism about the prohibition against taking from A and giving to B is enshrined in American law. Justice Story said in 1829: We know of no case, in which a legislative act to transfer the property of A. to B. without his consent, has ever been held a constitutional exercise of legislative power, in any state in the Union. Wilkinson v. Leland, 27 U.S. (2 Pet.) 627, 657, 7 L.Ed. 542 (1829). The Supreme Court has cited Chase's aphorism as recently as 1998. See Eastern Enters. v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498, 522, 118 S.Ct. 2131, 141 L.Ed.2d 451 (1998). Although there can be little argument in justification of the idea the government may arbitrarily take your private property and give it over to someone else's private use (as opposed to public use), Chase's aphorism has been employed on occasion to pernicious effect. For example, in invalidating New York's pioneering worker's compensation law, the New York Court of Appeals gave as one of the invalidating reasons the requirement for employers to pay premiums into the fund to pay injured workers was taking the property of A. and giving it to B., and that cannot be done under our Constitutions. Ives v. S. Buffalo Ry. Co., 201 N.Y. 271, 94 N.E. 431, 440 (1911). By contrast, that same year our predecessors on this Court, true to their Progressive Era and Populist roots, rejected similar property rights arguments to become the first court in the country to uphold the constitutionality of worker's compensation legislation. See State v. Clausen, 65 Wash. 156, 184-88, 117 P. 1101 (1911) (`[I]t is established by a series of cases that an ulterior public advantage may justify a comparatively insignificant taking of private property for what, in its immediate purpose, is a private use.' (quoting Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U.S. 104, 110, 31 S.Ct. 186, 55 L.Ed. 112 (1911) (Holmes, J.)). [7] Against that background, we turn to Washington's constitutional provision, Private property shall not be taken for private use. That is plain enough, but that is not all the first sentence of art. I, § 16 says. The remainder of the sentence goes on to say private property may be taken for private use for private ways of necessity, and for drains, flumes, or ditches on or across the lands of others for agricultural, domestic, or sanitary purposes. But isn't this taking private property from A and giving it to B for private use? Doesn't this provision in our state constitution violate the Fourteenth Amendment per Missouri Pacific Railway? The answer to the first question is yes; the answer to the second question is no. We considered these very questions in Mountain Timber Co. v. Superior Court of Cowlitz County, 77 Wash. 585, 137 P. 994 (1914). Mountain Timber wanted to condemn land belonging to another for use as a logging road. There was no outlet for the company's timber other than over the land of the respondent. See id. at 586, 137 P. 994. A 1913 statute enacted pursuant to art. I, § 16's exception for private ways of necessity allowed as much: An owner, or one entitled to the beneficial use, of land which is so situate with respect to the land of another that it is necessary for its proper use and enjoyment to have and maintain a private way of necessity... may condemn and take lands of such other sufficient in area for the construction and maintenance of such private way of necessity, ... The term `private way of necessity,' as used in this act, shall mean and include a right of way on, across, over or through the land of another for means of ingress and egress, and the construction and maintenance thereon of roads, logging roads, flumes, canals, ditches, tunnels, tramways and other structures upon, over and through which timber, stone, minerals or other valuable materials and products may be transported and carried. Mountain Timber, 77 Wash. at 586, 137 P. 994 (quoting Laws of 1913, at 412). The statute provided for compensation for the condemnation. See id. Nevertheless, the owner of the property resisted the condemnation by demurrer, and the trial court refused to permit the condemnation. See id. In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Gose, we began with a recurrence to certain fundamental principles, noting `the power of eminent domain is not a reserved, but an inherent right, a right which pertains to sovereignty as a necessary, constant and inextinguishable attribute.' Id., at 587, 588, 137 P. 994 (quoting 1 JOHN LEWIS, EMINENT DOMAIN § 3 (3d ed.1909)). [8] After saying the power of eminent domain is an inherent attribute of sovereignty, we carefully corrected a misstatement in an earlier case that art. I, § 16 grants the right to take private property for private use. Not so, we said. The proper way to look at it is that the State, as the sovereign, has the inherent power to condemn any land for any use, and that art. I, § 16 carves out a constitutional exception regarding private use. Art. I, § 16 simply excludes private ways of necessity from the exception for private use. See Mountain Timber, 77 Wash. at 590, 137 P. 994. Thus, the challenged statute did nothing more than provide a procedure for what the State had the inherent authority to do. With respect to the federal constitutionality of the statute, we said: The taking of private property for private use for the promotion of the general welfare, upon due notice and hearing and the payment of compensation, [9] is not incompatible with due process of law, as guaranteed by the Federal constitution. Id. at 592, 137 P. 994 (citing Head v. Amoskeag Mfg. Co., 113 U.S. 9, 5 S.Ct. 441, 28 L.Ed. 889 (1885). The general welfare we referred to existed because the road prevents a private individual from bottling up a portion of the resources of the state. Mountain Timber, 77 Wash. at 590, 137 P. 994. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit later affirmed the constitutionality of the statute under the Fourteenth Amendment in Ruddock v. Bloedel Donovan Lumber Mills, 28 F.2d 684, 687 (9th Cir.1928). To summarize the foregoing discussion, we know, pursuant to the Ninth Circuit's strong statement in Armendariz, the taking of private property for private use violates Fourteenth Amendment due process under federal jurisprudence. We also know under WASH. CONST. art. I, § 16, the government may take private property for private use so long as the taking promotes the general welfare and compensation is paid, and that such a taking does not violate Fourteenth Amendment due process. [10] Consequently, one can hardly agree with the majority that our state constitution provides greater protection for private property than the federal constitution. At the very least, the two constitutions provide similar protection. The taking of private property for private use that occurred in Mountain Timber received validation both in Washington's Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
As the majority correctly points out, under either the Fifth Amendment or art. I, § 16, in order for a taking to occur, government must take a citizen's property. Thus, the first task in any taking analysis is to identify what property, if any, is involved. The majority identifies two species of property, a right of first refusal and the right to dispose of property, but unfortunately conflates its assessment of the two, leading to analytical confusion. The majority discusses the right of first refusal and treats it as equivalent to a fundamental attribute of property, the right to dispose of it. But the majority fails properly to characterize the nature of a right of first refusal. The majority says the right of first refusal in the hands of the property owner is a valuable property right. Justice Johnson correctly points out this so-called right is not a property right susceptible to a takings analysis. Properly analyzed, what the park owners claim the statute unconstitutionally took from them is their alleged right to sell their mobile home parks in any manner they might choose to whomever they might choose. Until today, we have interpreted art. I, § 16 and the Fifth Amendment as essentially coextensive. Highline Sch. Dist. No. 401 v. Port of Seattle, 87 Wash.2d 6, 11, 548 P.2d 1085 (1976); Orion Corp. v. State, 109 Wash.2d 621, 657-58, 747 P.2d 1062 (1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1022, 108 S.Ct. 1996, 100 L.Ed.2d 227 (1988). Because the majority offers no sustainable reason why we should not continue to do so, its singular excursion into regulatory taking law, which has no parallel anywhere and in fact directly contradicts all United States Supreme Court decisions on regulatory takings, is difficult to follow or support. The proper course, which we followed in Guimont, is to continue to apply the ample, well-established federal law of regulatory takings. In Guimont, we adopted the United States Supreme Court's formulation for a facial taking. Neither the park owners nor the majority relies on this test for authority, of course, because they simply cannot show the challenged statute fails any aspect of the Guimont test. First, a taking may be present where there is a physical invasion of the property by government. Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 426, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 73 L.Ed.2d 868 (1982) (a permanent physical occupation authorized by government is a taking without regard to the public interests that it may serve.). Obviously, no such physical invasion occurs as a result of the challenged statute in this case. Second, a taking may be present if the action of the government in regulating the uses that can be made of the property denies the landowner all economically viable use of the property: ... [T]o succeed in proving that a statute on its face effects a taking by regulating the uses that can be made of property, the landowner must show that the mere enactment of the statute denies the owner of all economically viable use of the property. Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 605, 854 P.2d 1 (footnote omitted). As the Supreme Court explained in PruneYard Shopping Ctr. v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 84, 100 S.Ct. 2035, 64 L.Ed.2d 741 (1980), to establish a constitutional taking, a property owner must prove the rights lost were so essential to the use or economic value of [the] property that [a] state-authorized limitation of it amounted to a `taking'. See also Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1018, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992); City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687, 119 S.Ct. 1624, 1644, 143 L.Ed.2d 882 (1999) (holding determination of deprivation of all economically viable use is a jury question). Again, park owners in this case cannot demonstrate such a total taking of property by governmental regulation occurred, in any sense. [11] Finally, a taking by enactment of a statute or regulation can be demonstrated when the government action destroys or derogates a fundamental attribute of ownership. Guimont, 121 Wash.2d at 602, 854 P.2d 1. [12] Guimont indicates a taking cannot be found unless a fundamental attribute of ownership is actually destroyed or derogated. The term destroyed or derogated has been discussed in several Washington cases. See Presbytery of Seattle v. King County, 114 Wash.2d 320, 329-30, 787 P.2d 907 (court[s] should ask whether the regulation destroys one or more of the fundamental attributes of ownership), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 911, 111 S.Ct. 284, 112 L.Ed.2d 238 (1990); Sintra, Inc. v. City of Seattle, 119 Wash.2d 1, 14 n. 6, 829 P.2d 765 (regulation may also be a taking if it destroys one or more of the fundamental attributes of property ownership), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1028, 113 S.Ct. 676, 121 L.Ed.2d 598 (1992); Robinson v. City of Seattle, 119 Wash.2d 34, 50, 830 P.2d 318 (we ask whether the regulation destroys or derogates any fundamental attribute of ownership), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1028, 113 S.Ct. 676, 121 L.Ed.2d 598 (1992); see also Margola Assocs. v. City of Seattle, 121 Wash.2d 625, 643, 854 P.2d 23 (1993) (court first asks whether the challenged regulation destroys one or more fundamental attributes of property ownership). The majority blithely asserts because the Act destroys or derogates a fundamental attribute of ownership, it is a taking. The majority's assertion is superficial and far too simplistic. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes so aptly said, General propositions do not decide concrete cases. Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 76, 25 S.Ct. 539, 49 L.Ed. 937 (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting), overruled in part on other grounds by Day-Brite Lighting Inc. v. State of Mo., 342 U.S. 421, 72 S.Ct. 405, 96 L.Ed. 469 (1952). [13] First, [i]t is true that not every destruction or injury to property by governmental action has been held to be a `taking' in the constitutional sense. Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 48, 80 S.Ct. 1563, 4 L.Ed.2d 1554 (1960). Accord Eastern Enters. v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498, 118 S.Ct. 2131, 2146, 141 L.Ed.2d 451 (1998) (The party challenging the government action bears a substantial burden, for not every destruction or injury to property by such action is a constitutional taking.); PruneYard, 447 U.S. at 82, 100 S.Ct. 2035; Penn Cent. Transp. Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104, 144, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978); Alderwood Assocs. v. Wash. Council, 96 Wash.2d 230, 251, 635 P.2d 108 (1981) (Dolliver, J., concurring). Even the intellectual father of the modern property rights movement, Professor Richard A. Epstein, has written, But government restraint on property does not necessarily violate the Constitution as a deprivation of property rights. Even if left uncompensated, such restraints could well be justified under the state's police power. Richard A. Epstein, Lest We Forget: Buchanan v. Warley and Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Progressive Era, 51 VAND. L.REV. 787, 789 (1998). In other words, simply concluding a regulation affects some fundamental attribute of property initiates the inquiry, rather than ends it, as the majority opinion would have it. The inquiry into when a regulatory taking exists has assumed many forms. A study of each of them demonstrates conclusively the absence of a taking here.
In the famous case, Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 415, 43 S.Ct. 158, 67 L.Ed. 322 (1922), Justice Holmes wrote: The general rule at least is that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking. The first part of this sentence, property may be regulated to a certain extent, is often overlooked. It means the police power may legitimately regulate property. As Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority 70 years later said: It seems to us that the property owner necessarily expects the uses of his property to be restricted, from time to time, by various measures newly enacted by the State in legitimate exercise of its police powers. Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1027, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992). [14] Thus, regulation of property is not forbidden. The question as Holmes posed it is when does a regulation go so far as to constitute a taking: For just as there comes a point at which the police power ceases and leaves only that of eminent domain, it may be conceded that regulations of the present sort [rent control] pressed to a certain height might amount to a taking without due process. Block v. Hirsh, 256 U.S. 135, 156, 41 S.Ct. 458, 65 L.Ed. 865 (1921) (upholding District of Columbia rent control law). The determination of when a regulation goes too far is necessarily a substantive judgment. The object of the too far inquiry is to distinguish the point at which regulation becomes so onerous that it has the same effect as an appropriation of the property through eminent domain or physical possession. Williamson County Reg'l Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172, 199, 105 S.Ct. 3108, 87 L.Ed.2d 126 (1985). Here, the effect of the challenged Act is negligible. A park owner must simply give the park tenants notice of an impending sale and accept their offer if it equals the first offer. The park owner is financially as well off as if the statute were not in effect. By any test imaginable, other than an absolute prohibition against any regulation of property, the statute in the present case does not go too far.
Justice Black said in Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49, 80 S.Ct. 1563, 4 L.Ed.2d 1554 (1960), The Fifth Amendment's guarantee that private property shall not be taken for a public use without just compensation was 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. The Supreme Court has lately referred to this statement as an expression of the Fifth Amendment's concern[] for proportionality. City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687, 702, 119 S.Ct. 1624, 143 L.Ed.2d 882 (1999). Thus, the question of whether a regulation effects a taking necessarily requires a weighing of private and public interests. Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 261, 100 S.Ct. 2138, 65 L.Ed.2d 106 (1980). In the balance here, is the park owners' wish to sell the park free of the right of first refusal the statute gives the park tenants balanced against the devastating economic and social consequences of the sale of a mobile home park on its tenants. Justice Black used the phrase in all fairness and justice. What fairness or justice is there in the majority's assertion that a month's delay in a park owner's ability to sell is more important than the fates of the park tenants? Park tenants who because of the sale become homeless create new burdens for the people of Washington. To avoid these harsh results, the Legislature voted unanimously to give the park tenants a chance to remain in their homes by buying the park. The Legislature imposed a minimal obligation on the park ownerto forbear for 30 days to give the tenants a chance to buy the park. That minimal obligation, compared to the severe effects and costs to society of displacing tenants, leads to the conclusion that the statute does not require the park owners to bear a burden out of proportion to the burden that ought to be borne by society as a whole.
Petitioner Manufactured Housing Communities of Washington has not challenged the statute on substantive due process grounds, so there is no substantive due process question before the Court. But because analysis of an alleged taking under both the too far test and the Armstrong test involves substantive weighing determinations, it is helpful and instructive to look at how we might analyze this case under our substantive due process protocol. We said in Presbytery of Seattle, 114 Wash.2d at 330, 787 P.2d 907: To determine whether the regulation violates due process, the court should engage in the classic 3-prong due process test and ask: (1) whether the regulation is aimed at achieving a legitimate public purpose; (2) whether it uses means that are reasonably necessary to achieve that purpose; and (3) whether it is unduly oppressive on the land owner. In other words, 1) there must be a public problem or `evil,' 2) the regulation must tend to solve this problem, and 3) the regulation must not be `unduly oppressive' upon the person regulated. The third inquiry will usually be the difficult and determinative one. (Footnotes omitted.) Applying that analysis here, it is easy to see the challenged statute has a legitimate public purpose: the avoidance of economic devastation and homelessness following the sale of a mobile home park. The statute plainly uses means reasonably necessary to achieve its goal: giving the park tenants a chance to buy the park would prevent their displacement. Finally, the third prong, consideration of whether the statute is unduly oppressive, can lead only to the conclusion it is not: the statute does not result in any financial detriment to the park owners whatsoever. Compared to the social and economic costs of displacement of park tenants, the trivial delay in the sale of a park the statute imposes can hardly be considered unduly oppressive.
Twenty-one years ago in Penn Central, 438 U.S. 104, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631, the United States Supreme Court adopted an analytical protocol for assessing takings. In affirming a New York Court of Appeals decision upholding as against a regulatory taking challenge the City Landmarks Preservation Commission's denial of permission to build a 50-story office building over Grand Central Terminal, the Court noted its regulatory takings jurisprudence had not been based on fixed rules: 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. See Goldblatt v. [Town of] Hempstead , [369 U.S. 590, 594, 82 S.Ct. 987, 990, 8 L.Ed.2d 130 (1962) ]. 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, see, e. g., United States v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256[, 66 S.Ct. 1062, 90 L.Ed. 1206] (1946), than when interference arises from some public program adjusting the benefits and burdens of economic life to promote the common good. Id. at 124, 98 S.Ct. 2646 (emphasis added). Accord Eastern Enterprises, 118 S.Ct. at 2146. Thus, to determine whether a regulatory taking has occurred, the United States Supreme Court looks to the character of the regulation, the economic impact on the landowner, and the extent of interference with investment-backed expectations. Until today, we have followed the Penn Central three-part balancing test. Presbytery of Seattle, 114 Wash.2d at 334, 787 P.2d 907. The majority offers no reason why we should now overrule Presbytery and Guimont and abandon the Penn Central test. In any event, the park owners cannot meet the three-part Penn Central balancing test: 1. Character of the Regulation. Looking first to the character of the regulation, one can hardly deem it oppressive or burdensome. Unlike the statute we struck down in Guimont, the Act requires no financial contribution from the park owners. In fact, it may actually provide a benefit to the owners by helping improve the market for the mobile home park. A prospective third-party purchaser is more likely to offer a higher price for the park, knowing the home owners may match the offer. The statute, by providing notice to tenants and giving them a chance to bid the fair market value for a park, thus has the effect of promoting and encouraging a free and efficient market. An efficient market should work to the financial advantage of park owners. Moreover, the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld regulations adjusting the benefits and burdens of economic life to promote the social good, even though those regulations may have destroyed or adversely affected property interests. [15] See, e.g., Connolly v. Pension Benefit Guar. Corp., 475 U.S. 211, 225, 106 S.Ct. 1018, 89 L.Ed.2d 166 (1986) (provisions of Multi-Employer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980, requiring withdrawing employers to pay proportionate share of plan's unfunded vested benefits, did not violate Fifth Amendment taking clause); Penn Cent. Transp. Co., 438 U.S. at 125, 98 S.Ct. 2646 (owners of historic building could not establish a taking merely by showing landmark preservation ordinance prevented them from exploiting airspace above the building); City of Eastlake v. Forest City Enterps., Inc., 426 U.S. 668, 674, n. 8, 96 S.Ct. 2358, 49 L.Ed.2d 132 (1976) (By its nature, zoning `interferes' significantly with owners' uses of property. It is hornbook law that `[m]ere diminution of market value or interference with the property owner's personal plans and desires relative to his property is insufficient to invalidate a zoning ordinance or to entitle him to a variance or rezoning.' 8 E. McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 25.44, p. 111 (3d ed.1965).); Goldblatt v. Town of Hempstead, 369 U.S. 590, 592, 82 S.Ct. 987, 8 L.Ed.2d 130 (1962) (Concededly the ordinance completely prohibits a beneficial use to which the property has previously been devoted. However, such a characterization does not tell us whether or not the ordinance is unconstitutional. It is an oft-repeated truism that every regulation necessarily speaks as a prohibition. If this ordinance is otherwise a valid exercise of the town's police powers, the fact that it deprives the property of its most beneficial use does not render it unconstitutional.); Vill. of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 47 S.Ct. 114, 71 L.Ed. 303 (1926) (zoning ordinances not unconstitutional takings). As the Supreme Court said in Connolly, 475 U.S. at 223, 106 S.Ct. 1018: In the course of regulating commercial and other human affairs, Congress routinely creates burdens for some that directly benefit others. For example, Congress may set minimum wages, control prices, or create causes of action that did not previously exist. Given the propriety of the governmental power to regulate, it cannot be said that the Taking Clause is violated whenever legislation requires one person to use his or her assets for the benefit of another. But the majority's new approach to takings would appear to hold any effect on a use of property by a governmental regulation is sufficient to meet this prong of the test. While there is at least some superficial attraction to the park owners' assertion they have the right to sell their own property to anybody they might want to sell it to for whatever beneficial or whimsical or even capricious reason that occurs to them, our law has never said the right to dispose of property is so fundamental as to be an unfettered right. Such a view is entirely unsupported in our law. Washington law limits the disposition of property in a legion of ways. [16] A person may legally own a large supply of bottled liquor, but cannot go into a retail business to sell it in Washington because liquor sales are permitted only at state-run stores under the authority of the Liquor Control Board. A person may have a license to sell liquor at a restaurant or bar, but cannot sell liquor between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. WAC 314-16-050. We have long upheld the authority of the Liquor Control Board to set the hours of operation of establishments that sell liquor. State ex rel. Thornbury v. Gregory, 191 Wash. 70, 70 P.2d 788 (1937). Such prohibitions and restrictions on liquor sales survived takings challenges as long ago as 1877. See, e.g., Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 8 S.Ct. 273, 31 L.Ed. 205 (1887) (upholding Kansas statute prohibiting sale of alcoholic beverages as against a takings challenge based on the loss of value of property devoted to beer production). A person certainly has no right to sell tobacco products to whomever he or she wishes. It is a gross misdemeanor in Washington to sell tobacco products to those under 18. RCW 26.28.080. This statute, carrying a criminal penalty for its violation, is in derogation of one's right to dispose of one's property. Would the majority declare it a taking for that reason? If not, how would the majority distinguish its holding here? One may legally own a cache of firearms, but cannot sell them free of an armada of federal and state laws. See 18 U.S.C. § 921 (firearms); RCW 9.41.110 (unlawful to sell pistols without a license); RCW 9.41.190 (unlawful to sell machine guns and short-barreled shotguns). Would the majority declare these laws takings and facially unconstitutional derogations of one's right to dispose of property? Our antidiscrimination law specifically and in no uncertain terms limits the right of a property owner to dispose of property in any way he or she may desire. RCW 49.60.030(1) bars discrimination in real estate transactions. RCW 49.60.222 declares it to be an unfair practice for any person, whether acting for himself, herself, or another, to discriminate because of sex, marital status, race, creed, color, national origin, families with children status, the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability, or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a disabled person[.] Unfair practices include refusing to engage in a real estate transaction, refusing to negotiate for a real estate transaction, misrepresenting the availability of real property for sale or rental, and expelling a person from real property, with heavy civil penalties for violations enumerated at section .225. Of particular note is the prohibition against expelling someone from occupancy of real property for discriminatory reasons. RCW 49.60.222(1)(i). This statute implicates the right to exclude others, another fundamental attribute of property. The remedy for these violations may be a forced sale to the discrimination victim. RCW 49.60.250(5). Under the majority's analysis, these antidiscrimination statutes are facially unconstitutional and void because they destroy or derogate the right to dispose of property. How would the majority distinguish its holding here? All zoning laws would be abrogated under the majority's analysis as well because they interfere with the possession and use of private property. The majority chooses to consider each stick in the bundle of sticks and concludes any effect on any aspect of property is a taking. It cites Ackerman v. Port of Seattle, 55 Wash.2d 400, 409, 348 P.2d 664 (1960), for the following proposition: [17] Property in a thing consists not merely in its ownership and possession, but in the unrestricted right of use, enjoyment and disposal. Anything which destroys any of these elements of property, to that extent destroys the property itself. The substantial value of property lies in its use. If the right of use be denied, the value of the property is annihilated and ownership is rendered a barren right. The majority's analysis is further flawed because there is no such thing in Washington as an unrestricted right of use of property, and there never has been. We said in State v. Lawrence, 165 Wash. 508, 517, 6 P.2d 363 (1931), All property is held subject to such restraints and regulations as the state may constitutionally make in the exercise of its police power. [18] Moreover, the United States Supreme Court has never allowed property in takings cases to be assessed in a disaggregated sense and has never accorded essential status to the fundamental attribute of property asserted in this case, the right to dispose of property. In a seminal case that ought to be dispositive of the issue here, Andrus v. Allard, 444 U.S. 51, 100 S.Ct. 318, 62 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979), the Court considered a federal statute that prohibited commercial transactions in parts of birds legally killed before the birds came under the protection of the Bald Eagle Protection Act, 16 U.S.C. § 668(a). The issue reached the Court on the petition of persons engaged in the trade of Indian artifacts. They had in their possession for the purpose of sale at the time the Act went into effect artifacts partly composed of feathers from protected birds. They argued the enactment deprived them of property without just compensation because they could no longer sell the artifacts for profit. The Court rejected the argument. At the outset, the Court noted: [G]overnment regulationby definition involves the adjustment of rights for the public good. Often this adjustment curtails some potential for the use or economic exploitation of private property. To require compensation in all such circumstances would effectively compel government to regulate by purchase. Andrus, 444 U.S. at 65, 100 S.Ct. 318 (emphasis omitted). The Court recognized the Act placed a significant restriction on the owners' right to dispose of the artifacts. But this was not enough: [T]he denial of one traditional property right does not always amount to a taking. At least where an owner possesses a full bundle of property rights, the destruction of one strand of the bundle is not a taking, because the aggregate must be viewed in its entirety. Id. at 65-66, 100 S.Ct. 318. Thus, the Court concluded, the Act did not effect a taking, because even though the artifact owners could no longer sell the artifacts, they retain the rights to possess and transport their property, and to donate or devise the protected birds. Id. at 66, 100 S.Ct. 318. [19] The situation in Andrus parallels the situation in the present case, except the effect on the park owners is less onerous because the challenged statute does not destroy their right to sell, as in Andrus; it merely restricts and conditions sale for a short period of time. But the park owners retain every other right of ownership to their property: the right to possess it; the right to use it; the right to manage it; the right to income from it; the right to consume or destroy it at the conclusion of the leasehold terms; the right to modify it; the right to devise it. See Robert J. Goldstein, Green Wood in the Bundle of Sticks: Fitting Environmental Ethics and Ecology into Real Property Law, 25 B.C. ENVTL. AFF. L.REV. 347, 375 (1998) (discussing the rights to property). Pursuant to Andrus, there is no taking in this case where the interference to rights to ownership is so minimal compared to the full panoply of ownership rights the park owners retain. Other Supreme Court cases in addition to Andrus inveigh against disaggregating property rightsconsidering only single sticks from the bundleand hold the proper approach is to consider the effect of a regulation on the property as a whole: `Taking' jurisprudence does not divide a single parcel into discrete segments and attempt to determine whether rights in a particular segment have been entirely abrogated. Penn Cent. Transp. Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104, 130, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978); Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass'n v. DeBenedictis, 480 U.S. 470, 498, 107 S.Ct. 1232, 94 L.Ed.2d 472 (1987). In a more recent case, Concrete Pipe & Prods. of Cal., Inc. v. Constr. Laborers Pension Trust for So. Cal., 508 U.S. 602, 644, 113 S.Ct. 2264, 124 L.Ed.2d 539 (1993), the Court said a parcel of property could not first be divided into what was taken and what was left for the purpose of demonstrating the taking of the former to be complete and hence compensable. That is also the law of Washington: Similarly, our own state case law demonstrates that a regulatory scheme's economic impact is to be determined by viewing the full bundle of property rights in its entirety. Presbytery of Seattle, 114 Wash.2d at 335, 787 P.2d 907 (quoting Penn Cent. and citing Washington cases). Thus, until today, Washington takings jurisprudence has looked to the entirety of the property allegedly taken, not just to one stick in the bundle of property rights. The majority opinion changes that principle without acknowledging what it is doing or justifying the change. If we did not look at the effect of a regulation on property in its entirety, every land use restriction could be disaggregated from the entirety of the property and challenged as a taking. Examples would include the diminution in value from side yard and setback requirements on individual lots. A requirement that a building occupy no more than a specified percentage of the lot on which it is located could be characterized as a taking of the vacant area. Keystone, 480 U.S. at 498, 107 S.Ct. 1232. [20] In summary, the character of the regulation here challenged is in the mainstream of regulation that has been constitutionally permissible for most of the twentieth century. There is nothing novel or oppressive enough about the Act to suggest the character of the regulation here fails constitutional muster. 2. Economic Impact on the Owner. Because this case is a facial taking claim, there is no evidence in the record of economic impact. As discussed above, however, a regulation that has no economic effect other than to create the potential for a bidding war over the sale of a mobile home park, thereby assuring a sale at fair market value, can hardly work to a park owner's economic disadvantage. 3. Interference with Investment-Backed Expectations. This inquiry typically arises in the downzone context, where a jurisdiction might attempt to downzone property from a more intensive use, and therefore more lucrative use, to a less intensive use, such as a change from industrial or commercial to single-family residential or park. We addressed a like issue in Estate of Friedman v. Pierce County, 112 Wash.2d 68, 78-79, 768 P.2d 462 (1989) (quoting Junji Shimazaki, Comment, Land Use Takings and the Problem of Ripeness in the United States Supreme Court Cases, 1 B.Y.U. J. Pub.L. 375, 381-82 (1987)): Unlike eminent domain proceedings where the government actually acquires fee title, land use regulations only limit actual or potential use and enjoyment of private property. Consequently, when land use ordinances are challenged, courts must ascertain the remaining value of the regulated property to determine the amount of economic impact caused by the regulation. This is done largely by determining what remaining use of the property the ordinance permits. If substantial use remains, the amount of diminution in value or the effect upon the reasonable investment-backed expectations of the landowner are normally not significant enough to warrant a takings judgment. If, on the other hand, nearly all uses are depleted, a taking under the fifth amendment may exist. One cannot easily detect any interference with investment-backed expectations brought about by the challenged statute in this case, let alone such a reduction in the value of a mobile home park that nearly all uses are depleted[.] In summary, under all of the United States Supreme Court's tests for a taking, tests we have also adopted in Guimont, there is no taking here. [21] The Act permits the park owners to continue to use their property exactly as they had been using it, both as to rents and profits, and as to possible capital gains upon sale. As Justice Holmes noted: Government hardly could go on if to some extent values incident to property could not be diminished without paying for every such change in the general law. Pa. Coal, 260 U.S. at 413, 43 S.Ct. 158. Here, where there is not even a diminution in value, there can be no taking.