Court Opinion

ID: 9706852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:53:17.055131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:25.443882
License: Public Domain

*52Smith, J.
(Dissenting). We are confronted here with an admitted failure of the Highway Board to comply with the provisions of 19 V.S.A. §222 (c), relative to the proposed highway changes and alteration to be made in the so-called Lewiston area. This is the very area in which the appellants here have their property rights. But no notice was served on them setting forth the purposes for which their property rights might be desired, nor describing generally the improvements that were to be made in that area. One of them was not present at any of the hearings held on other parts of the proposed project, and there was, of course, no hearing on the Lewiston project, as such.
The opinion of the majority, in essence, is that compliance with 19 V.S.A. §222 (c) is not required as an essential step to the maintenance of condemnation proceedings by the Highway Board, unless a showing of prejudice is made as a result of such non-compliance by an appellant.
In my opinion, the intent of the Legislature in enacting this section of the highway condemnation statute is crystal clear. The statute [19 V.S.A. §222 (c)] provides that a hearing under this section “shall” be had,- but only after compliance with the requirement of the section relative to notice of such hearing, including “notice by registered mail to owners of lands and rights therein affected.”
The same section is explicit that the Board shall give such notices, and hold such hearing “before expending public money for engineering and condemnation” and “before arriving at its judgment” that the interest of the state shall require such relocation or alteration.
I agree with the majority that the notice and hearing provided for does not call for a judicial determination by the Board. Such is not the legislative intent. The intent, as declared by the statute, is to fully inform owners of property rights of the proposed plans and improvement which may involve a taking of their rights by eminent domain. The hearing provided for in 19 V.S.A. §222 (c) is to give those most vitally interested in the proposed taking of land the opportunity to examine the reasoning of the Board to justify the proposed taking, and on their part to offer suggestions and recommendations to the Board which may well alter the proposed plans.
The statute provides that only after this hearing can the Board proceed to lay out the highway, and the statute also requires the Board to give “due and proper considerations to the objections, sug*53gestions and recommendations made at such hearing,” a hearing that admittedly was never held in the instant case.
In my view, the burden is not upon these appellants to show that they were prejudiced by the lack of notice and hearing which they were entitled to, and which 19 V.S.A. §222 (c) made mandatory on the Highway Board to afford them. My view is that the burden was on the Highway Board to show a compliance with the statute here cited before such Board entered into a judgment which determined the necessity of taking such lands, or even to decide if such necessity existed.
While final determination of whether a taking of land is for a public purpose rests with this Court, I cannot agree that such power includes the right to waive the statutory requirements imposed by the Legislature as to the preliminary steps that must be taken by the Highway Board before it can take privately owned property rights.
Highway authorities should not be allowed to expedite the acquisition of private lands for highway purposes by ignoring preliminary procedural steps enacted by the Legislature for the protection of those whose private property rights are to be drastically affected.
I would reverse that part of the judgment order below affecting the private property rights in the proposed highway between the Led-yard Bridge and the Boston and Maine Railroad Bridge and dissent from that part of the majority opinion affirming this part of the order below.