Court Opinion

ID: 9705740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:18:36.105904+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:36.051445
License: Public Domain

Wolcott,
Justice (dissenting): I do not agree with the answers given to the certified questions of law by the majority of the court. The fundamental issue raised by the certified questions whether or *228not the state’s power of eminent domain may be delegated to the Wilmington Housing Authority and exercised to accomplish the purposes of the Slum Clearance and Redevelopment Authority Law (31 Del.C., Ch. 45).
The power of eminent domain possessed by a state is a limitation on the constitutionally guaranteed right of the individual to undisturbed private ownership of land. Every citizen is guaranteed that right. The right of the individual, however, is. subject to the higher right of the sovereign to take privately owned land for use by the public. The power of the state, however, is not unrestrained. It is confined to instances in which the public benefit to be derived from the use of the property may be said to override the right of the individual to undisturbed ownership. Under our Constitution the state may condemn private property for the sole reason that the public benefit demands its. use by the public.
These propositions are so fundamentally imbedded in our constitutional law that all courts unite in agreement upon them, as does the majority of this court in its answers to the certified questions.
The disagreement within this court in this, litigation arises over the question of what is a “public use”. The majority of the court says that the acquisition by condemnation of the alleged slum area in question, and the razing of the structures erected within that area, makes the taking of the individually-owned property comprising the area the taking of land for a “public use”, since the result will be the elimination of a slum in the City of Wilmington. The ultimate requirement of the plan of redevelopment that the land, or at least a major portion of it, be sold to private owners for redevelopment in accordance with a preconceived plan of redevelopment, the majority says, is a mere incident to the legitimate exercise by the Wilmington Housing Authority of its delegated power of eminent domain. It is with this conclusion of the majority that I am unable to agree.
It is apparent that this plan of redevelopment, which is quite clearly authorized by the provisions of the Redevelopment Law, is *229designed to accomplish the elimination of a slum and the redevelopment of the area along lines thought to be an improvement and thus a public benefit. But this is not to say that the condemned land has been put to a “public use” unless we accept as a definition of that phrase vague generalities couched in terms of “general welfare”, “public purpose”, or “public benefit”. The scheme proposed differs materially from the usual public low-rent housing project for the less economically fortunate in that it does not contemplate retention of ownership and management by public authority. Retention of ownership and management by public authority would certainly come closer to actual use of the land by the public, since the public interest would be a continuing one for the future.
I will agree that the elimination of slum areas in a community is socially and economically commendable and is, generally speaking, a public purpose. But this plan of redevelopment contemplates that the Wilmington Housing Authority, in exercising the delegated power of eminent domain, shall act merely as a conduit of title from one private owner to a different private owner. The public interest, or use, ceases once the land is acquired and the structures destroyed. That this is the fact is conceded by the majority since it upholds the subsequent sale provisions to private owners on the ground that the Authority has to do something with the land when its purpose of eliminating a slum has been achieved.
The majority says it is unnecessary to decide whether “public use” is to be defined in a more limited sense than “public purpose” because of certain fact findings of City Council regarding the existence of a slum in the area to be condemned. But despite this disclaimer, it is apparent that the effect of the answers given by the majority is, in actuality, to redefine the phrase “public use” in terms of “public purpose” or “general welfare”. This means that henceforth the state may exercise its power of eminent domain in order to further any of the varied activities regulated under the police power. I think it accurate to state that to date no court has gone so far as to hold that eminent domain may be exercised solely for the purpose of aiding the police power.
*230The majority of this court now seems to so hold. The answers given to the certified questions would seem to lead by logical progression to the conclusion that as long as there are sufficient legislative statements of fact and purposes present, the power of eminent domain may be exercised in aid of the general welfare, irrespective of the ultimate use to which the land is to be put, and irrespective of the ultimate ownership to which the land is to be transferred.
This, in my opinion, effectually destroys the constitutionally guaranteed right to own property. In my opinion, the passage of time, changing economic conditions, and sociological theories, do not, and in all right should not, justify the drastic altering of constitutional guarantees by an insidious erosive process. The Constitution, itself, prescribes a method for amendment. There is no constitutional sanction for a casual step-by-step amendatory process which, in time, inevitably will emasculate constitutional safeguards intended to be bulwarks against unbridled governmental interference with private rights.
In a sense, the majority of the court recognizes this in its caveat noted to those sections of the Redevelopment Law which purport to authorize the acquisition of so-called blighted areas and vacant and undeveloped land in order to permit its redevelopment. The majority draws a distinction between the acquisition of non-slum areas for the purpose of redevelopment and the acquisition of slum areas for the purpose of redevelopment, saying that the public use arises from the public purpose of slum elimination.
I do not think the Law is subject to this dismemberment. Nor do I believe that a reading of the act in full will support the conclusion that its primary purpose is the promotion of the general welfare by the elimination of slums.
The major emphasis in the act as a whole is on the redevelopment of the areas. As a matter of fact, outside of a definition contained in the first section of what a slum area is, and the necessity of some legislative findings by the governing body of the community that a slum area exists, the entire balance of the law is devoted to the method of *231preparing a redevelopment plan and the powers of the Authority to put it into effect. The conclusion is inescapable that far from the ultimate redevelopment of the area being an incidental consequence of the clearance of slums, as the majority of the court says, the fact is that the clearance of slums is a mere incident to the redevelopment of an area which, in the opinion of the planners running the show, has been developed in an improper manner. The act is an instance of the modern trend to do everything by governmental authority and to force the public to comply with social planning. This may be a desirable method of proceeding and governing but, in my mind, it requires the disregard of certain of our constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Furthermore, certain facts in the record before us point up the fact that the plan of redevelopment before us fundamentally is one for the redevelopment of an area along more acceptable lines, and not, as is contended, fundamentally a plan for the elimination of a slum. While there are no specific findings of fact before us because of the nature of the certification procedure, nevertheless, it is apparent from the voluminous record appended to the certification that, while there may be slums in this area, the entire tract is by no means a slum.
For example, the property owned by the plaintiff is located at the intersection of Sixth and Spruce Streets, which is the extreme southeast corner of a projection of the area in question. The plaintiff’s property is admittedly not sub-standard but, on the contrary, complies with the various building and sanitary codes of the City of Wilmington. This property is to be acquired, however, because of the desire for an integral area for purposes of redevelopment.
Similarly, the northwestern corner of the block bounded by Walnut, Poplar, Eighth and Ninth Streets, which block comprises the extreme northwest corner of the area in question, contains a warehouse, or factory building, and a parking lot. The building and parking lot are not architectural gems but they are certainly not a slum. In the absence of a trial on the facts in the court below and a determination of these issues it is impossible to say how much more of the area pro*232posed to be condemned could have been demonstrated not to be slum property.
All of this points up the fact that the emphasis in the contested law is not on slum clearance but is upon the redevelopment of the area along lines thought to be more economical and desirable. The fact that in the process a slum may be eliminated might almost be described as happenstance. It, therefore, seems to me that the entire law is subject to the caveat the majority of the court has raised as to the provisions of the law authorizing the acquisition by condemnation of property located in a blighted area, or undeveloped property necessary to be used in the proper redevelopment of the condemned area, on the ground that such a taking might well be a taking for private use.
Other grounds of attack were urged by the plaintiff, one of which is disposed of rather summarily by the majority of the court. This is that the elimination of slums — if that is the prime purpose of the law— could well have been accomplished by the exercise of the police power of the municipality. The answer given to this objection is that to date the police power has not abolished the slum. I point out that there is now showing in this record that any effort has been made to abolish slums through exercise of the police power. If any inference is to be drawn, it must not be that the police power is inadequate, but that it has not been tried.
I am aware that a large majority of the states which have passed upon similar laws have upheld their constitutionality. I am reluctant to be at odds with the main stream of judicial decision but of the reported decisions some are clearly distinguishable, and with respect to the others I am unable to agree with the reasoning expressed in them any more than I am able to agree with the majority of this court.
For the foregoing reasons, I register my dissent to the answers given by the majority of the court to the certified questions, excepting question designated (h), (j), (lc), (m), (n) and (o), in the answers to which I concur.