Court Opinion

ID: 9537088
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:12:22.245184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:55:57.936250
License: Public Domain

DIMOND, Justice Pro Tem.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
The Alaska Constitution provides that “[p]rivate property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation.”1 The legislature has implemented this constitutional provision by providing not only that compensation shall be paid for the property taken, measured by actual value, but also that there shall be compensation for property not actually taken but injuriously affected.2
As the court points out, the valuation of the property owner’s loss is generally fixed at a time prior to actual construction of the improvement by the condemning agency as to the land taken. In such a case, compensation for property not taken but injuriously affected must be estimated by the best means available, and will involve a certain amount of conjecture on the part of the jury.
But here we have a different case. The compensation was not determined finally by the jury until after the condemning agency’s improvement had been constructed. If the owner’s remaining property had been injuriously affected by the improvement, it would be helpful to the jury to consider the manner of construction in determining to what extent the property not actually taken was injuriously affected.
If the improvement was constructed in a negligent manner, it might well be that this would provide a more accurate measure of the extent to which the property not actually taken was injuriously affected, than when this element of compensation must be determined before the construction of the improvement. In the former instance, it is my belief that the determination of the damages to the property not taken, whether any are allowed or not, is a determination of just compensation and an integral part of the eminent domain proceedings. If this is true, then the rule adopted by the court as to not awarding costs and attorney’s fees to the condemning agency should apply here as well as to that part of the same proceeding where just compensation is determined for the land actually taken.
Applying that principle here, it is my opinion that as to the claim in the eminent domain proceeding of negligent construction of the improvement, attorney’s fees and costs should not be awarded to the condemning agency. Civil Rule 72 (k) applies here as well as to that part of the action regarding the value of the property actually taken, and the other civil rules al*1180lowing costs and attorney’s fees to the prevailing party have no application.
I dissent from the court’s adverse holding in this respect as set forth in Part III “The Pavement Damage Issue”, but concur with the remainder of the opinion.

. Alaska Const., art. I, § 18.

. AS 09.55.310(a)(2).