Court Opinion

ID: 9615683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:39:45.588171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:50.481768
License: Public Domain

OAKS, Justice,
(concurring):
I concur in the reversal and remand and in Parts I and III of the Court’s opinion, except for the references to constitutional *836law in the last few paragraphs of Part IIIB.
I join the Court in its conclusion and reasoning that in the circumstances of this case neither the 1972 stipulation (quoted in the dissent) nor the 1972 order of immediate occupancy deprived the Fribergs of their right to litigate whether the State had established the “conditions precedent to taking” specified in § 78-34-4. The Fri-bergs did not “abandon” their right to litigate this question because they did not withdraw the $80,000 that had been deposited pursuant to the order of immediate occupancy. U.C.A., 1953, § 78-34-9. While I share the dissent’s view that the best interests of all concerned dictate that the State’s right to take by eminent domain be resolved as soon as possible, property owners who do not abandon their defenses in the manner specified in § 78-34-9 must have an opportunity to litigate them. Either party can bring that issue on for decision, with or without a simultaneous determination of damages. Because that was not done in this case, the effect was to postpone the date for the determination of value, as explained below.
On remand, the court should award Fri-bergs compensation and damages on the basis of the value of their property on the date on which the State's right to condemn was finally established by court order on stipulation of the parties, December 12, 1979. This result follows from the fact that the State’s right to condemn the Fri-berg property and the amount of compensation and damages that had to be paid for it were never adjudicated in a contested proceeding. Section 78-34-11, which establishes the measure of compensation and damages as the “actual value” at the “date of the service of summons,” only applies, by its terms, to “all cases where such damages are allowed, as provided in the next preceding section [78-34-10].” In the context of § 78-34-11 and its cross-reference to § 78-34-10, the quoted reference to allowance of “damages” seems to me to include both compensation and damages. Both subjects are treated in § 78-34-10, and both are referenced in the preamble to § 78-34-11.
Since the Fribergs’ compensation was not “allowed” pursuant to the contested proceeding contemplated in § 78-34-10 (after adjudication of the right to condemn), the valuation date specified in § 78-34-11 is inapplicable to them. In this circumstance, the property owners are entitled to a determination of value as of the date of taking and to interest on the unpaid balance of that amount from that date or from the date they relinquished possession, whichever is later.
In this view of the case, the constitutional discussion in Part II of the plurality opinion is unnecessary. In my view, it also raises troublesome questions that should not be raised and need not be answered.
The summons date that § 78-34-11 specifies for valuation in adjudicated cases is a certain answer to a vital question. That certainty yields to confusion under Part II of the plurality opinion, which turns the "statutory valuation date into a “rebuttable presumption” that “imports a degree of flexibility into the statutory valuation scheme.” Under that reasoning, the service-of-summons date could not constitutionally be applied to measure compensation or damages where the condemnation proceeding was “prolonged” (elsewhere referred to as a “substantial interval” or “extraordinary delay”) and where the value of the property had “substantially appreciated” during the interval before the right to condemn was established “so that the valuation does not reflect a fair valuation of the property and does not therefore constitute ‘just compensation.’ ” The complexities of administering a constitutional doctrine based on such generalities are evident. How much appreciation is “substantial”? How much delay in adjudication is “extraordinary”? When does a proceeding become “prolonged”? And if these conditions are satisfied, how much “flexibility” in a valuation date does the Constitution require?
We should not impose the necessity of answering these questions in adjudicated *837cases. If there is a point at which state delay in prosecuting a condemnation action would cause the summons date to be unconstitutional as applied in a rapidly rising market, that issue can be settled in a future case which presents it unavoidably. The recent amendment of § 78-34-4(3) (requiring state use to commence within a reasonable time after the initiation of condemnation proceedings) makes it less likely that this issue will arise. In any event, it need not be resolved on the facts of this case.