Court Opinion

ID: 9604875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:27:37.769065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:24.763224
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
This case, probably one of the factually least complex cases that a court might enjoy having before it, should have been (1) disposed of by an immediate dismissal of an attempted appeal from an unappealable order denying a motion for summary judgment, or (2) a summary affirmance of the trial court’s decision that the State could not “take” away a property right without being required to pay just compensation, to be determined by a jury. Instead, it has remained in this Court for over two years, during which period of time a 3-2 majority opinion issued which turned well established condemnation law topsy turvy and rendered it virtually worthless, but did not declare it overruled. That is one wrong. The other is the wrong done to Ellis Merritt, the owner of a commercial lot in downtown Caldwell. Inasmuch as Shepard, C.J. and I were both in the dissent, some one in the majority, and our Court minutes will reflect who it was, believed that a rehearing should be had, and so voted. It was a noble thought, but little has come of it, other than that three weeks ago the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles. The majority opinion is now left exactly as it was last October, other than for adding today’s statement that “The Court has considered (that case) and finds it to be factually distinguishable as to the extent of the denial of the use of property.” If the Court as a whole considered the case and studied its content, I am unaware of the time and place. I would not say that the three justices in the majority did not themselves do so, but it would have been a pleasure to have sat with them as they did so.
The only other product of a second review of the case is that Bakes, J., has written a specially concurring opinion which favors us with his own views on government “regulation” which is not a “taking” as in “condemnation.”
Bakes, J., mentions three cases in which the government, under its police powers, can limit the use of real property and yet not be a “taking” as under the government’s condemnation power.
It is especially of interest to me that Bakes, J., writes that police power regulation “implicates the provisions of the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, and art. 1 § 13 of the Idaho Constitution, which prohibit government[s] from taking property without due process and payment of just compensation.” Until my reading of that statement, I had labored under the belief that the two governmental powers are separate and distinct; the government must proceed under *152one or the other, although it may not be obliged to declare which of the two powers it proceeds under. A power to condemn is a power to condemn. A police power is a police power. A problem arises when a government’s action purportedly is so arbitrary that it exceeds the bounds of police power, and it becomes the obligation of the courts to assess the substance of the activity, and place it in the proper category.
Of all the Court’s membership, other than Shepard, C.J. and myself, I would have thought until this Merritt case that Bakes, J. would have been the more knowledgeable in the area of condemnation by reason of his own practical experience. Experience is a good teacher.
His views are especially interesting too, where he informs us that the Supreme Court of the United States has been unsuccessful in coming up with a meaningful standard setting the limits as to how far police power can be overused before it is beyond proper limits. He tells us that state courts, lacking guidance from the High Court, are also “groping” with the same problem with which the High Court is “struggling.”
He apparently places this Court in the “groping” grouping, as evidenced by the citation to the Rueth case, which he indicates should be compared with the Barton case. Following those introductory remarks, his opinion concludes with the remark that the majority opinion, “brings the law relating to the regulation and limitation of access to public streets more in line with the cases dealing with zoning and other types of police power regulation and limitation of the use of property.”
The validity of that final sentence is beyond question. What is important, and remains unsaid, is WHY three members of the Court are undoing unquestioned longstanding case law precedent, which has been absolutely to the contrary.
Until today I had not realized that Idaho was groping for a standard detailing when an exercise of arbitrary police power is so outrageous and confiscatory that it is beyond constitutional limits.
I am indebted for having my attention brought to the Barton case, and on reading the opinion of that case, and wanting to know more, I have examined the record and briefs. It is the contract action which the opinion for the Court says that it is, and, although it will be studied further, I presently see nothing in it which has any bearing on the instant case. In due course, and time permitting, it appears to be a decision worthy of a law review article. I add also that I see nothing in the Rueth cases, opinion on appeal after the first trial, and opinion on appeal after the second trial, which offers support for the proposition that this Court has been groping in the area of condemnation law. Mention is also made that in the first opinion, the majority consisted of Justices Bakes, Bistline and McFadden, and it was in that opinion that the case law of condemnation was reviewed and judicially codified, much as this Court did in Dinneen v. Finch, 100 Idaho 620, 603 P.2d 575 (1979), and in Quick v. Crane, 111 Idaho 759, 727 P.2d 1187 (1986), in that area of the law dealing with motions for judgment n.o.v. and alternately for new trials. Justices Donaldson and Shepard did not join in the majority because of their belief that there had occurred no reversible error; neither expressed any disapproval of the thorough review of the principles of condemnation and inverse condemnation.
Brief comment on the United States Supreme Court opinion of June 9, 1987 is in order. That opinion does cut strongly against the majority view. The issue there was very precise, and as stated in the high court’s syllabus, dealt specifically with a purported “regulatory” taking:
In 1957, appellant church purchased land on which it operated a campground, known as “Lutherglen,” as a retreat center and a recreational area for handicapped children. The land is located in a canyon along the banks of a creek that is the natural drainage channel for a watershed area. In 1978, a flood destroyed Lutherglen’s buildings. In response to the flood, appellee Los Angeles County, in 1979, adopted an interim ordinance prohibiting the construction or reconstruction of any building or structure *153in an interim flood, protection area that included the land on which Lutherglen had stood. Shortly after the ordinance was adopted, appellant filed suit in a California trial court, alleging, inter alia, that the ordinance denied appellant all use of Lutherglen, and seeking to recover damages in inverse condemnation for such loss of use. The trial court granted a motion to strike the allegation, basing its ruling on Agins v. Triburon, 24 Cal.3d 266 [157 Cal.Rptr. 372], 598 P.2d 25 (aff’d on other grounds, 447 U.S. 255 [100 S.Ct. 2138, 65 L.Ed.2d 106]), in which the California Supreme Court held that a landowner may not maintain an inverse condemnation suit based upon a “regulatory” taking, and that compensation is not required until the challenged regulation or ordinance has been held excessive in an action for declaratory relief or a writ of mandamus and the government has nevertheless decided to continue the regulation in effect. Because appellant alleged a regulatory taking and sought only damages, the trial court deemed the allegation that the ordinance denied all use of Lutherglen to be irrelevant. The California Court of Appeal affirmed. (Emphasis added.)
The court’s holding is concisely set forth in the second syllabus:
Under the Just Compensation Clause, where the government has “taken” property by a land-use regulation, the landowner may recover damages for the time before it is finally determined that the regulation constitutes a “taking” of his property. The Clause is designed not to limit the governmental interference with property rights per se, but rather to secure compensation in the event of otherwise proper interference amounting to a taking. A landowner is entitled to bring an action in inverse condemnation as a result of the self-executing character of the constitutional provision with respect to compensation. While the typical taking occurs when the government acts to condemn property in the exercise of its ' power of eminent domain, the doctrine of inverse condemnation is predicated on the proposition that a taking may occur without such formal proceedings. “Temporary” regulatory takings which, as here, deny a landowner all use of his property, are not different in kind from permanent takings for which the Constitution clearly requires compensation. Once a court determines that a taking has occurred, the government retains the whole range of options already available— amendment of the regulation, withdrawal of the invalidated regulation, or exercise of eminent domain. But where the government’s activities have already worked a taking of all me of property, no subsequent action by the government can relieve it of the duty to provide compensation for the period during which the taking was effective. Invalidation of the ordinance withóut payment of fair value for the use of the property during such period would be a constitutionally insufficient remedy. 107 S.Ct. at 2385-89. (Emphasis added.)
On page 2385 of 107 S.Ct., the court explains:
Consideration of the compensation question must begin with direct reference to the language of the Fifth Amendment, which provides in relevant part that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.” As its language indicates, and as the Court has frequently noted, this provision does not prohibit the taking of private property, but imtead places a condition on the exercise of the power. See Williamson County, 473 U.S. at [173] [105 S.Ct. at 3110]; Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 297, n. 40 [101 S.Ct. 2352, 2371, n. 40, 69 L.Ed.2d 1] (1981); Hurley v. Kincaid, 285 U.S. 95, 104 [52 S.Ct. 267, 269, 76 L.Ed. 637] (1932); Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States, 148 U.S. 312, 336 [13 S.Ct. 622, 630, 37 L.Ed.2d 463] (1893); United States v. Jones, 109 U.S. 513, 518 [3 S.Ct. 346, 349, 27 L.Ed. 1015] (1883). This basic understanding of the Amendment makes clear that it is designed not to limit the governmental interference *154with property rights per se, but rather to secure compensation in the event of otherwise proper interference amounting to a taking. Thus, government action that works a taking of property rights necessarily implicates the “constitutional obligation to pay just compensation. ” Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49 [80 S.Ct. 1563, 1569, 4 L.Ed.2d 1554] (1960).
We have recognized that a landowner is entitled to bring an action in inverse condemnation as a result of “ ‘the self-executing character of the constitutional provision with respect to compensation____’” United States v. Clarke, 445 U.S. 253, 257 [100 S.Ct. 1127, 1130, 63 L.Ed.2d 373] (1980), quoting 6 P. Nichols, Eminent Domain § 25.41 (3d rev. ed. 1972). As noted in Justice Brennan’s dissent in San Diego Gas & Electric Co. v. City of San Diego], 450 U.S. [621] at 654-655 [101 S.Ct. 1287, 1305, 67 L.Ed.2d 551 (1981)], it has been established at least since Jacobs v. United States, 290 U.S. 13 [54 S.Ct. 26, 78 L.Ed. 142] (1933), that claims for just compensation are grounded in the Constitution itself:
“The suits were based on the right to recover just compensation for property taken by the United States for public use in the exercise of its power of eminent domain. That right was guaranteed by the Constitution. The fact that condemnation proceedings were not instituted and that the right was asserted in suits by the owners did not change the essential nature of the claim. The form of the remedy did not qualify the right. It rested upon the Fifth Amendment. Statutory recognition was not necessary. A promise to pay was not necessary. Such a promise was implied because of the duty imposed by the Amendment. The suits were thus founded upon the Constitution of the United States.” Id., at 16 [54 S.Ct. at 27].
Jacobs, moreover, does not stand alone, for the Court has frequently repeated the view that, in the event of a taking, the compensation remedy is required by the Constitution. See e.g. Kirby Forest Industries, Inc. v. United States, 467 U.S. 1, 5 [104 S.Ct. 2187, 2191, 81 L.Ed.2d 1] (1984); United States v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256, 267 [66 S.Ct. 1062, 1068, 90 L.Ed. 1206] (1946); Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. United States, 261 U.S. 299, 304-306 [43 S.Ct. 354, 355-356, 67 L.Ed. 664] (1923); Monongahela Navigation, supra, [148 U.S.] at 327 [13 S.Ct. at 626].
It has also been established doctrine at least since Justice Holmes’ opinion for the Court in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 [43 S.Ct. 158, 67 L.Ed. 322] (1922), that “[t]he general rule at least is, that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.” Id., at 415 [43 S.Ct. at 160]. While the typical taking occurs when the government acts to condemn property in the exercise of its power of eminent domain, the entire doctrine of inverse condemnation is predicated on the proposition that a taking may occur without such formal proceedings..... (Emphasis added.)
Much, in fact most, of those statements by the High Court are in all respects the same as made by earlier Idaho courts beginning with Renninger, and which were reviewed in the first Rueth appeal, and specifically quoted from in the first rounds of dissenting opinions in this case.
It goes without saying that the State here can claim that its impairment of access is not for all time — not for “perpetuity,” the Court’s phraseology in the Barton case. True, there the landowner’s property was in part being condemned, and she agreed to a settlement for a certain amount, plus a promise of continued access. The State later changed the highway and destroyed that access — absent payment of any compensation for doing so. It was resolved, wrongly I believe, as a contract matter, i.e., the bargained-for easement did not have a time limitation. Until I read that case I would have thought that an agreement for an easement, unspecified as to time, would continue indefinitely— whether the agreement was between two *155ordinary people, or as those between an ordinary person and the State of Idaho. The easement or contract rights relating to real property can be mutually cancelled, or the state can retrieve it by paying just compensation in an eminant domain proceeding.
The Lutheran Church case makes it clear that the government has to pay compensation for a complete taking of property by a regulatory ordinance, and for the whole duration thereof. It also makes clear that the government can withdraw its ordinance. Such a taking compares very nicely to a total temporary disability in workmen’s compensation law — which is compensable, and to a partial permanent disability — which is equally compensable.
The High Court has never held, as I fear my brethren so choose to believe, that compensation is not due for a partial permanent taking. In other words, an impairment of access.
Returning to my earlier comment that Bakes, J. is well aware of such impairments — he and I have sat at opposing counsel tables in federal condemnation proceedings whereat he represented the government. The situs was in North Idaho, and the taking arose out of regulatory action by the Corps of Army Engineers. The Corps desired to regulate the outflow of Lake Pend O’Reille, which pours into the Columbia River. The project was designed to ease spring flooding at Vantage, and other places on the Columbia. To do this the Corps built the Albeni Falls Dam, and regulated the release of waters, and in doing so intermittently impounded waters over and above privately-owned property. In few cases was there an outright fee taking. In all cases the government recognized its obligation to respond in condemnation damages for impairment of property rights of private owners. Usually the Corps water courses over the easement area six to eight months per year.
The majority, simply put, is overly careless in mixing police power concepts, which are replete with vagaries, and the powers of eminent domain, which were specifically addressed at length by the Idaho Constitutional Convention, and became embodied in art. 1 § 14 of the Constitution. On the other hand, there is no such police power article in our Idaho Constitution, nor is that term given any mention in the index to the Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention. Nor do I find police power mentioned in the two volumes which report the proceedings of the Convention.
It is rather evident that the Constitutional Convention was of the view that the taking of private property would be governed under the limitations of paying just compensation therefore, and there was not in any delegate’s mind the concept of an individual’s property being appropriated in full or impaired and diminished in value on a theory of police power to do so. A reading of the Proceedings makes it clear indeed that some present were against providing in the slightest for any taking of private property.
The concept of police power itself in those words, although in the states it flows from the tenth amendment to the United States Constitution, does not appear in the report of these proceedings.
Government police power, whether it be regulatory or zoning, cannot be used to supplant a specific recognized constitutional provision. Art. 11, dealing with corporations, did mention police power in § 8: “... the police powers of the state shall never be abridged or so construed as to permit corporations to conduct their business in such manner as to infringe the equal rights of individuals, or the general well being of the state.” And that is the extent of it. There was no discussion of that section by the Convention. Short years ago then, those who put together our Constitution, not even knowing of the extent to which “police power” would be pushed and overextended, protected private property rights with the provisions of art. 1 § 14. Today, of all strange happenings, those sworn to uphold the Constitution are tearing it asunder in the name of police power — a terminology which is entirely acceptable only when properly applied.
The Court’s opinion authorizing the State to impair the access to the Merritt property *156without payment may stand as this Court’s commemorative contribution to the bicentennial of the United States Constitution and the nigh Centennial of the Idaho Constitution.