Court Opinion

ID: 9737645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:31:15.112862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:00.441891
License: Public Domain

DAVIES, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
Although I agree with the majority in all other respects, the majority gives an unreasonably narrow reading to Minn.Stat. § 103E.091 (1998). Subdivision 1 of that section is a broad grant of authority to landowners to
appeal to the district court from a recorded . order of a drainage authority made in a drainage proceeding that determines:
(1) the amount of benefits;
(2) the amount of damages;
(3) fees or expenses allowed; or
(4) whether the environmental and land use requirements and criteria * * * are met.
Despite this broad authority to appeal, the majority finds in subdivision 2 a limitation on this authority deriving from the word “include.” They read it as if it said the person who appeals “may include benefits and damages affecting property not owned by the appellant” only in conjunction with an appeal of the amount of benefits or damages to their own property. I read the provision differently; I believe it authorizes an appeal limited to the benefits and damages to the property of others, or to the total benefits and costs, so long as the appellant has. standing because the project affects the appellant directly. The majority focuses on the word “include,” but it ignores the larger context in which it is used.
There are many situations in which a landowner may have a reason to appeal a *764drainage decision, yet have no reason to challenge the benefit allocation to its own land. One that comes to mind is when the landowner is satisfied with the amount of benefits allocated to its own property, but feels that the benefits allocated to other properties (and the assessments against them) are inappropriately low. The issue the party wants to raise in that circumstance relates to other people’s properties, rather than its own. Why should an appellant not be able to bring to the district court the issue of benefit to other properties, without complicating the case with a phony claim relating to the appellant’s own property?
Another example is when landowners do not want a project to go ahead and will themselves bear some of the cost if it does. Why should they not be able to pursue their claim of overall imbalance between benefit and cost, an imbalance that destroys the legality of the project, without complicating the case with a baseless claim about their own benefits?
The action of the appellants should be allowed to proceed. They are directly affected by this project. If they were not, contrary to the concern expressed by the majority, the ordinary judicial rules of standing would apply to prevent them from intruding into the affairs of others.