Court Opinion

ID: 9570350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:22:34.291891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:06:28.309424
License: Public Domain

FELDMAN, Vice Chief Justice,
concurring.
I fully concur in the opinion of the court but would add one point to part V.
The Enabling Act voids only sales and leases not made in “substantial conformity” with its dispositional requirements. See Arizona Enabling Act, § 28, Pub.L. No. 219, 36 Stat. 557 (1910). The primary question always is whether the state has fulfilled its trust duty to dispose of the land for at least its appraised value. See County of Skamania v. State, 102 Wash.2d 127, 134, 685 P.2d 576, 580 (1984); Alamo Land & Cattle Co., Inc. v. Arizona, 424 U.S. 295, 303, 96 S.Ct. 910, 916, 47 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976); Lassen v. Arizona ex rel. Arizona Highway Department, 385 U.S. 458, 87 S.Ct. 584, 17 L.Ed.2d 515 (1967). Thus, while the state has some discretion to regulate the auction procedure, it may not tamper with the substantive imperative forbidding sale for less than appraised value.
For this reason, I do not believe we need to resolve the hotly-debated point of whether the lessee’s right to match the highest and best bid chills the bidding or encourages bidders to keep their bids high in order to prevent the lessee from exercising its match-up preference right.