Court Opinion

ID: 9620507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:43:15.923372+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:26.468118
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(dissenting).
In dissenting, I am convinced that the main opinion cannot stand the test of correct statutory construction, or the import of stare decisis.
The Board of Education is an agency of the state,1 subject to its plenary control and elimination, if so determined.2 Obviously *60the Board was using the school in a governmental capacity,3 and no one seriously would contend otherwise. It seems to be conceded that the interstate highway is charged with a more necessary use.
Two agencies of the state are involved. In such event, that one which by legislative sanction is interdicted to construct a facility having a more necessary use, prevails.4
Art. 1, Sec. 22 of the Utah Constitution prohibits the taking of private property without compensation.5 Not public property. Respondents must concede that were it not for Title 78-34, U.C.A.1953, and its subdivisions, no compensation would need to be paid for the taking of the subject property. It must hang its hat on Title 78— 34-3(3), or not at all. Therein is found! the only reference to public property. All' other sections obviously deal with private property and the procedure for its condemnation. The very title of the section upon which respondent relies reads as follows: “Private property which may be taken,”' and its preamble is to the effect that “The-private property which may be taken under this chapter includes.” It seems obvious, therefore, that subsection (3) had to do^ with private property, and that any reference to public property had to do with that held in a private or proprietary capacity, if at all. Else, the section makes no sense. The property here having been held in a *61governmental capacity, it follows that it was not compensable when being transferred from one government agency to another for a higher and better use.6 ■
All this points up the nub of this case: In light of the obvious purpose and intent of Art. 1, Sec. 22 of the State Constitution, to prevent taking of private property without compensation, with an equally obvious and significant failure to include public property therein, together with an assist from the familiar maxim of “expressio unius est exclusio alterius” does Title 78-34 clearly require that the Constitution be interpreted to require compensation for public property taken, and make “public property” clearly synonymous with private property, in a constitutional sense ? The answer would seem to demand an inescapable “No.” The main opinion’s rationale does not call for any other answer.
Like the respondent, the majority opinion must hang its hat on Title 78-34, U.C.A. 1953, or not at all. But there is no hat rack. In substance and effect the opinion, without authoritative support, justifies itself generally as follows:
1.That “the legislature had in mind” that necessity may require the taking of public property for a more necessary public use. Agreed. This observation proves nothing however except to restate the statute. It does not explain where anything is said specifically or clearly to the effect that compensation must be paid in such event, when the Constitution indicated otherwise.
2. That the act made no distinction as to method in condemning public or private property. This statement is not helpful. The act is procedural. It does not specifically provide for payment in case of taking public property. Such nonspecificity does not require any overhauling of Art. 1, Sec. 22, by Title 78-34. Significantly it actually lends stature to the purpose and intent of the constitutional provision that obviously and meaningfully did not interdict the taking of public property without compensation. This, in silent tribute to the philosophy that the agencies of the state are subservient to it.
3. That the act requires a condemnor to take certain steps to condemn, including the fact that “all owners” be made defendants, that the “value” shall be “separately assessed,” the taker to pay within 30 days. The suggestion that such provisions apply to public property taken for a more necessary use, belies the plain wording of the Title, and begs the question. Firstly, the *62Board of Education is owner of nothing save by the grace of the state.7 Its property belongs not to itself but to the people of the state, who are its parents. The argument of the main opinion fails to disclose that the act contemplates private, not public property, as its subject matter. Nowhere can be found any specific or implied suggestion that the eminent domain statute applies to anything but private property, or, at best, private property held by a state agency, not in a governmental capacity, but in a proprietary one.8 Thus, any such suggestion does violence to principles of constitutional and statutory construction and their implications, generally epitomized by the “expressio unius” maxim mentioned above.
4. That although there is merit to the argument that to take from one state agency for another would take from one pocket to put in another, such argument is fallacious since the school money is not in a unified fund coverable into the general fund. The main opinion then, by way of novelty, concludes that if the highway department acquires part of the school board’s “property,” so-called, without compensation therefor, “that would disrupt the balanced plan for the financing of schools” and that “as a practical matter it would create insuperable obstacles for school boards in managing their schools.” The suggestion in support of such conclusion does not merit any consideration from a legal standpoint, since it simply substitutes a philosophical point of view for binding legal authority.
S. That even though federal participation is uncontrolling here, it dramatically points up the inequities of taking school property for a higher and better public use. Such suggestion in turn suggests a sort of objectivity complex divorced from juridical justification. It has no place in the decision.
Again: The main opinion gives no good legal reason for its decision. It cites no authority for it except its own voluntary conclusion that things would be too disrupted if we decided otherwise. It ignores constitutional implications and invokes the *63provisions of a completely nonspecific statute to justify its rationale making- public property synonymous with private property, constitutionally, and legislatively, when any such synonymity simply is not there. (Emphasis supplied.)
CALLISTER, Justice, concurs in the view expressed in the opinion of Mr. Justice HENRIOD.'

. Bingham v. Board of Education, 118 Utah 582, 223 P.2d 423 (1950).

. “ ‘Municipalities are the creatures of the state, and the powers given to them are *60always subject to be abridged or repealed by the sovereign who conferred them.’ * * * Property may be held by a municipal corporation either in its governmental or in its private proprietary capacity. If the former, it is held as an agency of the state, and property so held may be reclaimed by the state at any time without compensation.” State Highway Comm. of New Jersey v. City of Elizabeth, 140 A. 335, 337. “Even upon the assumption that a city or town has acquired absolute ownership of property as an agency of the state, if it is held strictly for public uses, it may be transferred to some other agency of government charged with the same duties, or it may be devoted to other public purposes, without-the consent of the city or town to which it may belong, and without compensation, since it is subject to legislative control.” 56 A.L.R. 366. “ * * * the Commonwealth has absolute control over such agencies with power to add to or subtract from the duties to be performed by them or to abolish them and take the property used for public purposes without compensating the agency therefor.” In re Condemnation of Land by Pennsylvania Turnpike Comm. v. Somerset Co., 32 A.2d 910, 913 (Pa.1943); Raybould v. Hardy, 7 Utah 368, 26 P. 982.

. “Certainly, the maintenance of public schools * * * calls for the exercise of governmental functions.” Brush v. Comm., 300 U.S. 352, 57 S.Ct. 495, 500, 81 L.Ed. 691 (1937); Woodcock v. Board of Education, 55 Utah 458, 187 P. 181, 183, 10 A.L.R. 181 (1920), which said “School districts are corporations with limited powers, and act merely on behalf of the state in discharging the duty of educating the children of school age in the public’ schools created by general laws.” Nichols, Eminent Domain, Vol. 2, p. 223, Sec. 5.9.

. Salt Lake County v. Liquor Control Commission, 11 Utah 2d 235, 357 P.2d 488 (1960).

. “Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation.”

. “With or -without the consent of the inhabitants of a school district, over their protests, even without notice or hearing, the State may take the school facilities in the district, without giving compensation therefor, and vest them in other districts or agencies. * * * ” People ex rel. Dixon v. Community Unit School Dist., 2 Ill.2d 454, 118 N.E.2d 241, 246. See cases in footnote 2.

. “The ‘property of the school district’ is a phrase which is misleading. The district owns no property, all school facilities, such as grounds, buildings, equipment, etc., being in fact and law the property of the State and subject to the legislative will.” Pritchett v. County Board of School Trustees, 5 Ill.2d 356, 125 N.E.2d 476, 478 (1955).

. “Where property of a municipality is condemned * * * the municipality’s right to compensation depends on whether the court decides that the property is held * * * in .a proprietary or in a governmental capacity. If proprietary, the property must be paid for. If for governmental purposes, no payment need be made by the state.” Orgel, Valuation Under Eminent Domain, 2d Ed., Sec. 42. N. B. No one would question that the school in the instant case was being used for anything save for a governmental purpose.