Court Opinion

ID: 9546326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:27:40.042848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:16.410572
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(concurring in the result)—Our state legislature has established a procedure relative to the condemnation and acquisition of property for rights of way and other purposes by the state, which provides considerable but somewhat inadequate standards of fair play or due process safeguards for the property owner. The legislation provides that, if the state requires immediate possession after an order of necessity (not appealed from), the attorney general, in the condemnation action, shall certify the requirement of immediate possession to the superior court, indicating the sum offered for the property by the state as a continuing and binding tender by the state. He *175then causes a warrant to be issued by the state auditor, payable to the clerk of the court, in a sum sufficient to pay the amount offered by the state. The warrant is cashed by the clerk and paid into the registry of the court. The court orders the state to pay the full amount of any final judgment thereafter awarded to the property owner and further, by order, permits immediate possession to be taken by the state. Thereafter, the property owner may at any time withdraw the money paid into court, without prejudice as to the amount of a final judgment in the matter. (See RCW 8.04.090.)
Under the statutes, the property owner is entitled to demand a trial by the court, or a jury, to determine the final amount of the compensation for the property taken or damaged. If the court or jury award is in excess of the amount tendered, the state is bound to pay such excess with interest. Finally, the costs of the action are charged to and paid by the state. (See RCW 8.04.092.)
A somewhat comparable statutory procedure was approved by the supreme court of Arizona in Bugbee v. Superior Court, 34 Ariz. 38, 267 Pac. 420. The significant difference in the Arizona statutory procedure is the fact that thereunder the trial judge, without a jury, takes evidence as to probable damages or compensation, and thereupon determines or fixes the amount of probable damages or compensation. Furthermore, the Arizona statute requires that double the amount so fixed be paid into court. The Bugbee case, supra, not only upheld the Arizona statutory procedure, but Art. II, § 17, of the Arizona constitution (which is almost identical with our own constitutional provision) was held not applicable to municipal corporations in connection with the acquisition and immediate possession of property for right-of-way purposes.
The matter of prepayment of compensation does not seem to me to have been the basic question confronting the court in the early cases of Brown v. Seattle, 5 Wash. 35, 31 Pac. 313, Lewis v. Seattle, 5 Wash. 741, 32 Pac. 794, Peterson v. Smith, 6 Wash. 163, 32 Pac. 1050, State ex rel. Smith v. Superior Court, 26 Wash. 278, 66 Pac. 385.
*176In the Brown case, supra, the questions were (1) whether a property owner was entitled to compensation for damages to his property resulting from a public improvément, when no part of his property was actually taken by the city, and (2) whether the only relief of such a property owner should be a common-law cause of action for damages. In the Lewis case, supra, the basic question was whether a deduction could be made (from the damages or compensation awarded) for special benefits accruing as a result of the public improvements. In the Peterson case, supra, the basic question was whether the amount of compensatipn could be fixed by road appraisers, as provided in a state statute, rather than by a jury, as specified in the state constitution. In the Smith case, supra, the question was whether the Seattle Electric Company, a public utility (obviously not a subdivision of state government), could post a bond for the payment of compensation to be awarded subsequently.
Except in the Lewis case, the foregoing questions were decided in favor of the property owners involved. In so doing, the early decisions of the court indicated, in language that is unquestionably broad and sweeping, that a prepayment of money was necessary for the protection of the property owners concerned, and that such prepayment was required by the state constitution. However, much, if not all, of this language was dicta, and to me the significant questions now are (1) whether the broad, sweeping language used in the above-mentioned early cases, relative to prepayment, was actually essential to the decisions therein reached, and (2) whether such broad and sweeping language would have been used by the court, if at that time a procedure had been established by the legislature providing reasonable protection, or standards of fair play, that is, due process safeguards for property owners in connection with the exercise of the sovereign right of eminent domain by the state and its subdivisions of government.
' If legislation of the latter-mentioned type, comparable to that involved in the Bughee case, supra, had existed, it is *177my best judgment, and I am strongly convinced, that the court in the early Washington cases could, and probably would, have decided the basic questions involved in the same manner, but without being compelled to advert to the broad, sweeping language with reference to the matter of prepayment of compensation or damages.
In the Lewis, case, supra, it is said that the constitutional language, “other than municipal,” clearly creates an exception in favor of municipal corporations, relative to the application of Art. I, § 16. But the effect of the exception is restricted to the matter of deduction of benefits from the amount of compensation or damages awarded to property owners. As mentioned above, I believe that in the Lewis case the question of basic concern to the court was whether the exception as to municipal corporations permitted the latter to deduct from a condemnation award the value of benefits to a property owner’s land resulting from public improvements. In the Lewis case, the argument was advanced to the court that the exception relative to municipal corporations could apply either to (a) prepayment of compensation or damages, or to (b) deduction of benefits, but not to both matters. It was urged by counsel for the property owner that the constitutional language made sense only if applied to the matter of prepayment of compensation or damages. In other words, the suggested interpretation supported the property owner’s basic contention in the case that a deduction of benefits could not be made, and that there was no exception in favor of municipal corporations as to the matter of benefits. Apparently, the court accepted the argument that the exemption as to municipal corporations could apply to one or the other, but not to both (a) prepayment and (b) deduction of benefits, and, in the process, concluded that the exemption only applied to the latter. It seems to me that the argument offering a choice of one or the other of two alternatives, and its acceptance by the court, was purely fortuitous and somewhat unfortunate, in so far as the incidental, not germane, question of prepayment of compensation was concerned. In *178other words, the language referring to the matter of prepayment was dicta.
The language contained in Art. I, § 16, of our state constitution, as revised by amendment 9, does not necessarily have to be interpreted in the restricted manner which respondent state auditor contends is required by statements of this court in the Brown, Lewis, Smith and Peterson cases, supra. In connection with a condemnation and acquisition of property for right-of-way purposes (as distinguished from other purposes), the phrase, “other than municipal,” can, and I think should, be regarded as a full and complete exemption of municipal corporations from the two requirements of Art. I, § 16 (amendment 9) of the constitution, (1) that full compensation he paid in advance of possession, and (2) that the value of benefits flowing from contemplated public improvements may not be deducted from total compensation to which a land owner is entitled for the taking or damage to his property. Bughee v. Superior Court, supra; Hinds County v. Johnson, 133 Miss. 591, 98 So. 95; State Highway Comm. v. Buchanan, 175 Miss. 157, 165 So. 795. In the respect just indicated, my views are in conflict with those of the majority. However, other considerations cause me to concur in the result reached by the majority. I refer to Art. I, § 3, of the state constitution, and the requirements inherent therein. It reads: “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Respondent contends that the existing eminent domain statutes do not provide reasonable or adequate due process safeguards for property owners. Considerable emphasis is placed upon the lack of reasonable notice to property owners prior to the entry of a court order “granting to the state the immediate possession and use of the property described in the order of necessity.” RCW 8.04.090. Although this apparently overlooks the ten-day notice to property owners involved in the entry of an order of necessity (which, considering the circumstances, might be too short a period to constitute adequate notice), there is much to be said as to the necessity of reasonable notice to a property owner *179prior to the possession of his property, and his ouster therefrom, by the state.
However, in my opinion, there are more serious due process defects in the existing legislation. The amount of the state warrant, and, consequently, the cash amount paid into the registry of the court, is determined by the amount of the offer made by the state for the property of the condemnee. The amount of the state’s offer is not determined judicially, or after the taking of evidence as to probable value of the property, as in the Bugbee case. The amount of the offer is determined by an official or officials of the executive department. The amount of the offer may or may not bear some reasonable relation to probable value. It might be substantially less than the amount of a final judgment in the condemnation proceeding. There is no requirement, as in the Bugbee case, that double the amount of the probable value be paid in cash into court as security for the property owner. Although, under the existing legislation, cash equal to the offer of the state is paid into court, the property owner has no security other than the credit of the state (or the credit of some other municipal corporation, as the case may be) for any difference between the amount of the state’s offer and the amount of the final judgment in the eminent domain proceedings. It is certainly to be hoped that the credit and good faith of the state are and will be in good condition in the future, but not too long ago the credit of the state and other subdivisions of government was subject to some fluctuation, and funds were not always available for the discharge of solemn obligations.
In my judgment, the defects just mentioned significantly distinguish our existing legislation from that involved in the Bugbee case. These defects render our legislation invalid constitutionally (Art. I, § 3, state constitution), strictly upon the ground of a lack of acceptable due process safeguards for property owners in eminent domain proceedings, where the state is seeking immediate possesison of property for right-of-way purposes. The defects in the eminent domain procedure, as I see them, may be corrected by appropriate legislation, without the necessity of constitutional amendment.
*180On the basis of the reasons I have indicated herein, I concur in the result reached by the majority that the writ must be denied.