Court Opinion

ID: 9665400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:47:30.830773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:15.419856
License: Public Domain

G. BARRY ANDERSON, Judge
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result reached in this case, largely on the basis of Brennan v. *828Minneapolis Soc’y for the Blind, Inc., 282 N.W.2d 515, 524-25 (Minn.1979) and State v. Wicklund, 576 N.W.2d 758, 757 (Minn. App.1998), aff'd, 589 N.W.2d 793 (Minn. 1999). In particular, despite the mighty labor on the part of appellants’ counsel, I am not persuaded that the city here exercised the type, duration, and level of control over the development of the adjacent parcel so as to require the extraordinary remedy of inverse condemnation. Perhaps, as a matter of fundamental property rights, appellants’ position should be the law; but at the end of the day, neither Minnesota statutes, nor decisions of the Minnesota Supreme Court, given the fairly routine development agreement at issue here, permits the use of the doctrine of inverse condemnation. See Martinco v. Hastings, 265 Minn. 490, 497, 122 N.W.2d 631, 638 (1963) (stating “[i]f there is to be a change in the statute, it must come from the legislature”) (citations omitted); see Tereault v. Palmer, 413 N.W.2d 283, 286 (Minn.App.1987) (asserting “the task of extending existing law falls to the supreme court or the legislature, but it does not fall to this court”), review denied (Minn. Dec. 18, 1987); cf. State ex rel. Coduti v. Hauser, 219 Minn. 297, 303, 17 N.W.2d 504, 507-08 (1945) (declaring the legislature is free to “ignore logic and perpetrate injustice as long as it does not” violate constitution and that, absent ambiguity in the relevant statute, any remedy must be by amendment of the statute and not by construction) (quotation omitted).
But, of course, there is a difference between what the city is required to do and that which it is permitted to do. Appellants allege, and the city does not dispute, that they have suffered significant economic losses as a result of city-facilitated development on the adjacent parcel.
Given the unique business operated by appellants, it would not be unreasonable for the city to reconsider its position relative to eminent domain proceedings involving appellants’ parcel, particularly in light of the allegation that future city-facilitated development of appellants’ parcel may occur. But I agree, based on the present state of eminent domain law in Minnesota, that it is beyond the authority of this court to require the city to commence such proceedings.