Court Opinion

ID: 9689767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:46:10.920919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:52.054541
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice
(dissenting from opinion and judgment on rehearing).
The opinion of the majority on rehearing at the outset simplifies the meaning of “highway purposes” as used in the constitutional amendment and statute in question with the statement that this language “albeit broad in scope, is clear and explicit.” The reason given is that if the framers of Section 19.1 had intended that the authorization to the Legislature to expropriate property by ex parte orders was to be limited to the property forming part of the highway right-of-way, it would have been easy to thus provide by appropriate language.
In my opinion, under the circumstances of this case, it would be better to say that if the intention was to permit this quick-taking method to apply to the “operation of any gravel bed, pile or rock deposit, marble or granite quarry, or land from which earth can be obtained, or other natural resources or deposits susceptible of being used for the construction of state *1127highways or bridges” it would have been easy and it was necessary to thus provide by appropriate language.
By its reasoning the majority finds cause to abandon the principles of statutory construction applied and relied upon in our original opinion in this case: that is, statutes conferring the power of eminent domain should be strictly construed.
The rule of strict construction finds additional grounds for application in this case, for by abolishing the right to contest the necessity for the taking heretofore considered to be within the protection of the due process clause of the constitution, this constitutional amendment has done violence to a fundamental precept of any civil society— that no one should be judge of his own cause.
It has apparently been considered expedient to abolish this fundamental precept in order to confer these extraordinary rights upon the Department of Highways. By vesting in that agency of the state the right to determine the necessity for the particular taking, the constitution thereby confers upon that agency the right to adjudicate its own cause and thus forsakes the rights of the individual to be heard on the question of the necessity for the taking.
I do not contend that the judiciary can dispute the right of the citizenry of this state to embody these powers in its constitution and basic law. What I do contend, however, is that such an enactment does violence to a basic precept of any civil society and its effect should be strictly limited to the clearly expressed and unequivocal meaning of the language employed.
I respectfully dissent from the judgment on rehearing.