Court Opinion

ID: 9505571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:06:38.344241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:37.269301
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Justice,
dissenting.
When the City of South Bend attempted to use its eminent domain powers to acquire City Chapel's place of worship, City Chapel claimed that this use of eminent domain violated City Chapel's rights under the free exercise of religion clauses of the Indiana and federal constitutions.1 City Chapel sought a hearing in the trial court on this claim. Finding no hearing required, the trial court found that the city's exercise of its eminent domain power did not violate City Chapel's rights under the free exercise clauses.
In this appeal, City Chapel only asks us to order such a hearing.
On appeal, City Chapel says its rights under the free exercise clauses were violated when the trial court did not grant it a hearing on its claims. The opinions of Justice Dickson, Chief Justice Shepard, and Justice Bochm each address City Chapel's claims as such. To me, City Chapel's appellate claim and my colleagues' analysis conflate two distinct issues with constitutional significance. Whether City Chapel was entitled to a hearing or not is an entirely separate issue from whether City Chapel's free exercise rights were violated by the city's exercise of its eminent domain powers.
I think this case should be analyzed in the following way. First, we must answer as a matter of procedural law whether City Chapel was entitled to a hearing. If we conclude that City Chapel was entitled to a hearing, then I think that we must remand for such a hearing before we can reach the constitutional issues. Put differently, either the constitutional claim is ripe on the record for review-thereby invoking our power to say what the law is-or the claim is not ripe for our adjudication.
There are many potential sources for a right to a hearing in this case: the Indiana Trial Rules, the eminent domain statute, the due course of law provision of the Indiana Constitution, and procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, among others. However, City Chapel has failed to assert adequately a right to a hearing under any body of law. Instead, it skips the initial inquiry into the propriety of a hearing and concentrates exclusively on its rights under the free exercise clauses of the Indiana and federal constitutions.2
City Chapel also fails to set out what evidence would be offered on remand that is not available in the record. City Chapel's only reference to what it would present at a hearing is contained in the following passage in its reply brief;
City Chapel is prepared to present evidence to the trial court that, in other redevelopment projects, the City of South Bend has not used its condemnation powers to take a church located in the redevelopment area. Instead the *456City of South Bend has allowed the church to remain in the redeveloped area. In this case, the City of South Bend's condemnation action is specifically directed to City Chapel and its mode of worship, because of its non-traditional style and location, in violation of Article I, Section 4 of the Indiana Constitution.
Appellant's Reply Br. at 28. However, this passage in the brief cites two portions of the record where City Chapel's attorney made this exact point during oral argument to the trial court on the motion for an evidentiary hearing. The attorney also argued that the church could not afford to move to another location. While not technically "evidence," City Chapel's uncontested assertions put these points in the record and before the trial court.3 Moreover, the lack of evidence to be gained by a hearing is put into sharper focus by the fact that South Bend accepted City Chapel's depiction of the relevant facts on appeal. Appellee's Br. at 3-4. Because of this failure, it is difficult to see what additional benefits would be had or interests served by remanding this case for an evi-dentiary hearing.
City Chapel's only claim in this appeal is that it was entitled to an evidentiary hearing. This case should have focused on the adequacy of City Chapel's assertion of such a right, not the free exercise of religion. Because I believe that City Chapel has not adequately demonstrated a right to an evidentiary hearing, I believe that my colleagues decide a series of issues that we have not been asked to decide. We should not do so.
I would affirm the trial court.

. U.S. Const. amend. I ("Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]"); Ind. Const. art. I, §§ 2, 3, 5, and 7.

. Essentially, City Chapel asserts a right-free exercise of religion-and seeks a procedure for vindicating that right-an evidentiary hearing-without any discussion of the propriety of that form of vindication. Its lengthy discussion of the underlying constitutional issues does not illuminate the necessary step of determining the efficacy of an evidentiary hearing in this context.

. This deficiency in City Chapel's argument must also be viewed through the procedural posture of the case. The trial court initially granted City Chapel's request for a hearing. After hearing oral argument on purely legal grounds, the trial court changed course and denied the hearing. This denial was based on South Bend's constitutional arguments, which means that the trial court implicitly determined that as a matter of law City Chapel could present no evidence that would override South Bend's power to condemn the building. We review such legal determinations de novo. See Bader v. Johnson, 732 N.E.2d 1212, 1216 (Ind.2000) ("[Where the issue presented on appeal is a pure question of law, we review the matter de novo."). Under our de novo standard of review, we must view the record in the light most favorable to City Chapel. Cf. Schulz v. State, 731 N.E.2d 1041, 1043-44 (Ind.Ct.App.2000) (holding that under de novo review of a motion to dismiss, court must "evaluate the [facts] in the light most favorable to the plaintiff with every inference in [its] favor."), transfer denied. Because we may presume the facts that City Chapel has adequately asserted in its objections and at oral argument before the trial court, a hearing would not bring to light any information not already presented in the record.