Court Opinion

ID: 9683091
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:22:16.817862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:44.675670
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Judge
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree with the holding of the majority opinion that because the con-demnor has not complied with federal statutes the state court is without jurisdiction to act in these condemnation actions.
It is one thing to say that in order to secure federal-aid funds for Missouri highways the Commission shall comply with a federal law which provides for the distribution of those funds; it is quite another, in my opinion, to say that a court of this state does not have “jurisdiction” to act in a condemnation action, such as is involved here, unless the condemnor has first complied with requirements of a federal law.
That part of § 226.150 (the first sentence) quoted in the majority opinion first appeared in the laws of this state as a part of the Centennial Road Law adopted in 19211 and it was carried forward in exactly the same language in each revision of our statutes thereafter, including the most recent revision in 1969. It was a part of the great effort being made then to “get Missouri out of the mud,” when a high percentage of the right-of-way acquired for highways was by way of gifts from those whose land adjoined the first hard-surfaced roads. It is difficult today to imagine that members of the 1917,1919 or 1921 sessions of the General Assembly intended, or even dreamed, that § 226.150 would or could in a future day be used in connection with a later act of congress to effect a change in the law of eminent domain of this state. I say that with confidence partly because this legislation was enacted back in the day when men in the state legislature, and those in the congress, were apparently of the opinion it was desirable, if not in fact required, that the states give their assent to federal aid for road construction.2
If it is the intent of the General Assembly that the Commission shall have authority to institute and maintain a condemnation action only if it has first complied with these additional appraisal, negotiation and settlement offer provisions of 42 U.S.C., *343§§ 4651 and 4652, it should say so now. It certainly does not purport to say so in § 226.150.
If these conditions are to be a determining factor in whether a state court has jurisdiction, it would be far better that the General Assembly say so than that the court, by way of “construction” of this fifty-year-old statute, say so by changing the law of eminent domain to require that the condemnor shall have complied with these particular federal requirements as well as those of Missouri.
I respectfully dissent.

. Section 16, Laws of Missouri, 1921, (first extra session) pp. 132 and 138, which had its beginning in the Hawes Road Law, Laws of Missouri, 1917, p. 485.

. Section 1, Laws of Missouri, 1917 (part of the Hawes Road Law), reads: “That assent is hereby given to an act of the congress of the United States, entitled: ‘An act to provide that the United States shall aid the states in the construction of rural post roads and for other purposes,’ approved July 11, 1916.” (emphasis supplied). See also: § 10889, RSMo 1919.