Court Opinion

ID: 9726302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:42:09.404791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:25.736282
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, PAUL H„ Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. For the reasons set forth in my special concurrence in Hous. & Redevelopment Auth. ex rel. City of Richfield v. Adelmann, 590 N.W.2d 327 (Minn.1999) (Anderson, Paul H., J., concurring specially), I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the district court has lost subject matter jurisdiction in this matter. Therefore, I would reverse and let this case proceed.
We need to be very cautious about how we treat the rights of persons when we apply the Takings Clauses which are more accurately described as the Eminent Domain Clauses 1 of both the United States Constitution and the Minnesota Constitution. In State v. Jude, we stated:
The decisions in this state have never unduly restricted the owner’s constitutional right to just compensation where there has been a taking of private property for public use under the powers of eminent domain. * * * Attempts on the part of a condemnor by technical means to defeat the landowner’s right to his day in court have never been viewed with favor.
258 Minn. 43, 44, 102 N.W.2d 501, 503 (1960) (quoting State v. Rust, 256 Minn. 246, 253, 98 N.W.2d 271, 276 (1959)). In my view, the Takings Clauses do not expressly grant eminent domain powers to the government; eminent domain powers are rightly regarded as inherent powers of government. Rather, the Takings Clauses impose limitations on the exercise of this power, one limitation being the requirement that “just compensation be paid to the owner.”2 I regret that our jurisprudence has evolved to the point where we confuse the issues of subject matter jurisdiction and personal jurisdiction such that a failure to give notice to someone who does not have an interest in the condemned property can potentially thwart an owner’s ability to receive “just compensation.”

. William B. Stoebuck, Takings Clause, in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States 856 (Kermit L. Hall ed., 1992)

. Stoebuck, supra note 1 at 856.