Court Opinion

ID: 9670861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:27:23.069517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:06.877958
License: Public Domain

SIMONETT, Justice
(concurring specially).
I join in the court’s opinion but wish to comment on what is a “judicial question.”
It is said that determining the measure of compensation in condemnation proceedings is a “judicial and not a legislative question” because the government may not constitute itself the judge in its own ease. Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States, 148 U.S. 312, 327, 13 S.Ct. 622, 626, 37 L.Ed. 463 (1892). Thus the government as a taker should not be setting the rate of interest for what it is taking; or at least the legislative branch, which pays the award, should not be setting the interest. This determination, so the reasoning goes, is better made by the judicial branch which is structured to be a neutral arbiter. Nevertheless, the question of interest relates not to the amount of the award itself but to preserving the value of the award. While an award reflects the many unique characteristics of the particular parcel taken, an interest rate is less unique or particularized, more easily identified, and allows for some relaxation of the “judicial question” test. Thus courts have allowed a *365statutory interest rate to be “evidence” of what is just compensation.
In Monongahela, Congress authorized the condemnation of the property owner’s lock and dam but added a proviso that in determining the amount of the award, the property owner’s franchise to collect tolls was not to be considered. It was in the context of rejecting this proviso that the Court said the right to compensation was a judicial, not a legislative, question. In Seaboard Air Line Ry. Co. v. United States, 261 U.S. 299, 306, 43 S.Ct. 354, 356, 67 L.Ed. 664 (1923), the United States Supreme Court held that a property owner was entitled to interest on its condemnation award as part of “just compensation”; but there Congress had made no provision for any interest, so the Court approved use of South Carolina’s legal rate.
The majority opinion in this ease is consistent with State by Spannaus v. Carney, 309 N.W.2d 775, 776 (Minn.1981). Here the interest rate, although prescribed by statute, is tied to a rate outside the control of the state legislature, is updated every year, and is the rate paid on other money judgments. In enacting this statutory rate it is presumed the legislature did not intend to violate the constitutional requirements for just compensation. Hence, Minn.Stat. §§ 117.195 and 549.09 are construed in tandem to set a rate that is presumptively just compensation. This presumption is rebuttable, thus affording the property owner its judicial forum. The proper interest rate in a particular case is a mixed question of law and fact with significant constitutional implications, and the question, therefore, is for the court to decide.