Court Opinion

ID: 9883977
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:29:34.453755+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:19.959376
License: Public Domain

PAUL H. ANDERSON, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur with the majority’s conclusion that the district court did not err as a matter of law when it found that the state’s closure of the median crossover did not constitute a compensable taking. But I write separately to clarify specific factual aspects of this case, to address the relevancy of County of Anoka v. Blaine Building Corp., 566 N.W.2d 331 (Minn.1997), and to express concerns about the breadth of the court’s holding.
First, it is important to clarify the factual setting of this ease. In its arguments before both the district court and the court of appeals, Dale Properties asserted that the 1973 Final Certificate issued at the conclusion of the earlier condemnation proceedings granted Dale Properties a right to the median crossover point. Both lower courts concluded that the certificate granted no such right. The issue of the 1973 Final Certificate is not before us on ap*768peal; therefore, the ruling of the lower court on this issue is the law of the case. The lower court’s ruling places Dale Properties in a situation similar to any other abutting landowner. Dale Properties cannot claim that as the result of an earlier condemnation proceeding, it retained specific rights to the median crossover. Therefore, Dale Properties asserts an inverse condemnation claim, not a takings claim.
Second, the majority uses Blaine Building, a partial takings case, to support the result reached here even though this case, as previously noted, is an inverse condemnation case. This confusion is in part understandable because the court in Blaine Building failed to distinguish between the two types of cases. But inverse condemnation cases are not dispositive in partial takings cases. As I stated in the dissent in Blaine Building, “inverse condemnation precedent confuses the threshold issue of whether a property owner is entitled to compensation with the true issue in [.Blaine Building]: whether evidence of diminished access is admissible to establish the proper measure of damages when there has been a partial taking.” 566 N.W.2d at 339.
The problems with the court’s analysis in Blaine Building were recently summarized in a law review article. In that article, the commentator said:
Thus, in Blaine Building Corp., the majority spends much of the opinion arguing the reasons for denying compensation, when the issue of whether or not compensation will be awarded is not in dispute, instead of discussing any reasons as to why the evidence of diminished access is not admissible.
A better and more coherent approach for the majority would have been to exclusively rely on partial takings cases in making its decision. Inverse condemnation cases are instituted by a landowner to try to prove that property has been taken. In Blaine Building Corp., property had been taken and there was no dispute as to the fact that compensation was required, as is the case in other partial takings cases. Thus, the line of cases presented by the majority are, as the dissent pointed out, “not helpful in that they address only the issue of whether a compensable taking has occurred and shed little light on the proper measure of damages when, as here, the right to compensation is indisputable.” 1
The irony of citing Blaine Building to support the result reached in the case before us today is that the inverse condemnation cases inappropriately relied upon in Blaine Building are appropriate to our analysis here. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that partial takings cases and inverse condemnation cases have different pedigrees and we should not perpetuate any erroneous confusion of the two concepts.
Finally, the breadth of the court’s opinion is troublesome because the majority, like the district court, resolves the issue before us by adopting the position that removal of a median crossover can never constitute a compensable taking. Therefore, the majority does not address the issue of reasonably convenient and suitable access. However, we have long recognized the principle that property owners do enjoy a right of “reasonably convenient and suitable” access to highways that abut *769their property. Johnson v. City of Plymouth, 263 N.W.2d 603, 605 (Minn.1978); State ex rel. Mondale v. Gannons Inc., 275 Minn. 14, 19, 145 N.W.2d 321, 326 (1966). We reiterated this principle in Blaine Building when we said “a property owner suffers compensable damage when the roadway is changed in such a way that the owner is denied reasonably convenient and suitable access to the main thoroughfare in at least one direction.” Blaine Bldg. Corp., 566 N.W.2d at 334 (citing Gannons, 275 Minn. at 19, 145 N.W.2d at 326; Hendrickson v. State, 267 Minn. 436, 437, 127 N.W.2d 165, 168 (1964)). See also Recke v. State, 298 Minn. 500, 502, 215 N.W.2d 786, 788 (1974). The import of this statement is clear — when a roadway is changed, a property owner may not be denied “reasonably convenient and suitable access” in at least one direction.
It is likely that confusion has been created by the sentence in Blaine Building that follows the aforementioned statement. This second sentence reads as follows:
“[T]he law is well settled * * * that the dividing of a roadway by median strips or dividers cannot be made the subject of compensation in condemnation,” where, as a result, a property owner loses traffic access in one direction, but retains access in the other. Gannons, 275 Minn. at 23, 145 N.W.2d at 329.
Blaine Bldg. Corp., 566 N.W.2d at 334. The majority construes this statement to mean that dividing a roadway by median strips or dividers, ergo removal of a median crossover, can never be the subject of compensation in condemnation. Such a reading ignores the juxtaposition of “reasonably convenient and suitable access” in the first sentence and “retains access” in at least one direction in the second sentence. When read together, the principle articulated in Blaine Building is that the retained access to the main thoroughfare m one direction must still be reasonably convenient and suitable. If it is not, there is a taking subject to compensation in a condemnation proceeding.
The holding articulated by the majority is so broad that access “in one direction” to Dale Properties’ property could at one point be in Wisconsin and at the other in South Dakota. Such access would not be reasonably convenient and suitable and would be subject to compensation. Fortunately, that is not the situation that we have before us. Based on the facts, Dale Properties has not demonstrated that it has been denied reasonably convenient and suitable access in at least one direction. Therefore, it is not entitled to relief in an inverse condemnation proceeding. Here, when the state closed the median crossover, it properly exercised its police power in furtherance of its duty to ensure public safety on Highway 5. There was no com-pensable taking as a matter of law. But, unlike the majority, I am unwilling to state as an absolute rule that, as a matter of law, there never can be a compensable taking when a median crossover is closed. Therefore, I would reverse the court of appeals and reinstate summary judgment, but would do so on substantially more limited grounds than those articulated by the majority.

. Alison J. Midden, Case Note, Property— Taking of Access: Minnesota Supreme Court Declines to Allow Admission of Evidence of Diminished Access Due to Installation of a Median In a Takings Case, 25 Wm. Mitchell L.Rev. 329, 349-50 (1999) (emphasis added) (citations omitted).