Court Opinion

ID: 9513383
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:34:52.91861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:50.406525
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Chief Justice,
concurring in result.
[¶ 34] I agree with the result reached by the majority opinion. I write separately as to part II C of the majority opinion concerning exhaustion of remedies. It seems to me it is precisely when a party is forced with the Water District’s “insistence that the District had the sole legal authority to determine whether the culvert should be installed” and the party’s efforts were “simply overridden by the District” that an appeal should be taken. The majority also excuses Kadlec’s failure to petition the Township to install the culvert as required in Olson v. Cass County, 253 N.W.2d 179 (N.D.1977), because in Olson the landowners “were not faced with an entity claiming and exercising authority, but actually without authority, to make the culvert decision.” It is apparent that had Kadlec taken an appeal from the District decision in 1995 or petitioned the Township, or both appealed and petitioned at that time, his remedy would not only have been plain, but more speedy and adequate than the petition for mandamus finally filed in 1997 and only now being finally determined.
[¶ 35] I do not believe that in applying the exhaustion-of-remedies doctrine the failure to take an appeal is excused because of the *825obfuscation of the other party. Although I do not read the majority opinion as so holding, I am concerned it may be read in that light by parties who, deterred in one cause of action, simply drop that cause to pursue another avenue. We have been faced with arguments in the past that exhaustion by way of appeal should not be required for a variety of reasons, but: “Our decisions have [ ] consistently required exhaustion of remedies before the appropriate administrative agency as a prerequisite to making a claim in court.” Thompson v. Peterson, 546 N.W.2d 856, 861 (N.D.1996), and “Unless exhaustion would be futile, when appellate processes are available and the remedies will provide adequate. relief — whether they be internal or external — those remedies must be exhausted before seeking judicial remedies.” Tracy v. Central Cass Public School, 1998 ND 12, ¶ 13, 574 N.W.2d 781.
[¶36] Notwithstanding my concerns, I agree with the majority that the circumstances of this case are peculiar enough to create an exception to the exhaustion doctrine. Those circumstances include the fact the District was not the entity with the authority to grant relief and the fact that the Township, the entity with the authority, does not complain about Kadlec’s failure to exhaust administrative remedies and does not contest the writ of mandamus. Cf. Nagel v. Emmons County Water Resource D., 474 N.W.2d 46 (N.D.1991) (in action for injunction, Water Resource District dismissed from action by trial court; county obtained flow-age easement by prescription caused by change in natural drainage during road construction).
[¶ 37] SANDSTROM, J., concurs.