Court Opinion

ID: 9562445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:29:13.678488+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:21.385862
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
This matter is controlled by the venerable case of Spring Street Co. v. City of Los Angeles (1915) 170 Cal. 24 [148 P. 217], Indeed, the facts here are remarkably similar to those in Spring Street.
*910In that case (1) the city adopted a scheme through which it attempted to recoup its costs of acquiring land for a street widening project by assessing the costs against the abutting property; (2) the city took the right-of-way through condemnation proceedings; (3) the city assessed the abutting property owners the same amount as was awarded for land taken in the condemnation proceedings.
In this case (1) the county, through Board Policy J-16, adopted a scheme by which it sought to recoup the costs of acquisition of the property for street widening by assessing the acquisition costs against the landowners; (2) the county took the right-of-way through settlement negotiations, under threat of condemnation, with the various landowners; (3) the county assessed the landowners the precise amount awarded to them for the right-of-way, thus effectively cancelling out all compensation paid for the taking of private property.
The law at the time of Spring Street, and the law today, is that a special assessment for road improvements may be imposed only if there is special benefit, and then only in some reasonable proportion to the special benefit returned to the property by virtue of the improvement. (City of Baldwin Park v. Stoskus (1972) 8 Cal.3d 563, 568 [105 Cal.Rptr. 325, 503 P.2d 1333].) Under that guiding principle, the Spring Street court unanimously rejected the assessment there with this conclusion: “It bears upon the face of the record, as here presented, convincing and conclusive evidence that no effort at all was made by the council to assess in proportion to benefits. It is impossible that under the exercise of any discretion in the matter it could be found that in every case the damage awarded by the court for the taking of the property was exactly or more than covered by the benefit which would accrue to the remaining property by the widening of the street. And it is also impossible that those separate pieces of property were, in addition, each one of them, benefited to the exact added amount which it cost the city to take the condemned land. It is to strain credulity beyond the breaking point to ask that any such belief be for a moment entertained.” (170 Cal. at p. 31.)
The majority’s lame attempts to distinguish Spring Street on its facts fail to undermine the principle for which it stands, and which remains equally applicable to the case at bar.
To comply with that principle the public entity should follow the same steps as the courts that review its action: i.e., “it is necessary first *911to identify the benefit which the public improvement will render; next, to determine if the property owners will receive a benefit different from that of the general public; and, finally, to ascertain if the formula on which the assessments are made is based on the benefit received.” (Harrison v. Board of Supervisors (1975) 44 Cal.App.3d 852, 857 [118 Cal.Rptr. 822].) The Harrison court found that the “facilitation of traffic is of general benefit to the community,” not of special benefit to adjacent landowners. (Id., p. 858.)
The record is devoid of any evidence that the county undertook the required three-step analysis in the instant case. It merely adopted its Policy J-16, which provided that owners of real property abutting a major road would pay the costs of improvements, including construction costs of an identified portion of the road, acquisition costs of the right-of-way, and certain incidental expenses.
The county’s scheme is a cynical method of automatically shifting the cost of an improvement benefitting the public onto the backs of a few landowners because of the fortuity of their location. Not only do the landowners lose a portion of their property, but they are then deprived of the constitutionally required compensation for the taking. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 19.) I strongly disapprove of this acquisitive device by which a public entity, in order to obtain private property, puts funds therefor in a landowner’s pocket—and then proceeds to pick the pocket.
I would reverse the judgment.
Clark, J., concurred.
On May 14, 1980, the opinion was modified to read as printed above.