Court Opinion

ID: 9853680
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:52:13.394909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:00.117444
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Justice,
with whom BOO-CHEVER, Chief Justice, joins concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that Universal has no interest of sufficient importance to warrant constitutional protection from state action. I think the opinion dismisses too readily the existence of a property interest requiring procedural due process protection. Although no lease or license had been granted to Universal, the language of the statute and regulations suggests a reasonable, governmentally in-
duced expectation that a noncompetitive lease would be granted upon a proper showing of workability. AS 38.05.250(a). provides for 10-year permits to prospect for deposits of minerals. The statute specifies: “No minerals from lands under a prospecting permit may be mined and marketed or used, except for limited amounts necessary for sampling or testing.” The incentive for expenditure of substantial sums of money in prospecting is the likelihood of securing a lease. AS 38.05.250(b) provides, in part:
A noncompetitive lease shall be granted to a holder of a prospecting permit for so much of the land subject to the permit as is shown to the satisfaction of the director to contain workable mineral deposits. (emphasis added)
11 AAC 86.530(a) provides, in part:
[I]f the permittee shows to the satisfaction of the director that the land covered by the permit contains workable mineral deposits, the permittee is entitled to a noncompetitive mining lease (emphasis added)
The state’s encouragement of permittees in their expenditure of substantial sums in prospecting for deposits of minerals and the strong legislative and administrative language just quoted suggest to me that in cases such as the one at bar there should be a clearer expectation of receiving the lease than in cases where the administrator’s discretion is total. See, e. g., United States v. Walter, 409 F.2d 477, 481 (9th Cir. 1969).
Further, the Supreme Court of the United States has provided some guidance as to when a governmentally induced expectation of a property interest amounts to an entitlement requiring due process. See Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2709, 33 L.Ed.2d 548, 561 (1972), where the Court said, in part:
*813To have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it.
In Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 601, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570, 580 (1972), Justice Stewart wrote:
‘[P]roperty’ denotes a broad range of interests that are secured by ‘existing rules or understandings.’ [citation omitted] A person’s interest in a benefit is a ‘property’ interest for due process purposes if there are such rules or mutually explicit understandings that support his claim of entitlement to the benefit and that he may invoke at a hearing.1
On the basis of the foregoing, I would hold that Universal has a property interest which is protected by the due process clause of the Alaska Constitution.2
I concur in all other aspects of the court’s opinion.

. In his recently published treatise on constitutional law, Professor Tribe discusses the evolution of the “statutory entitlement” doctrine— extending procedural due process beyond the common law core of personal interest. See L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 10-9 (1978). In discussing Board of Regents v. Roth and the Court’s suggestion that present enjoyment of a statutory entitlement is an indispensable prerequisite to due process protection (i. e., that the interest in specific benefits has already been acquired), Professor Tribe states:
It might thus be argued that there exists no due process duty to afford a hearing when the state turns down an initial request (as opposed to a renewal application) for welfare, a government job or parole. But it would be inconsistent with any intelligible rationale underlying due process protection to deny all procedural safeguards to the new applicant where the law provides that all individuals meeting certain objective criteria are entitled to, say, welfare, (footnotes omitted)
Id. at 518-19.

. I think our decision in City of Homer v. State, Dep’t of Natural Resources, 566 P.2d 1314 (Alaska 1977), is relevant in deciding whether Universal’s expectations deserve due process protection and determining what level of procedural formality is required. There we treated an application for certain tidelands as a “property right” requiring some form of due process protection:
Private parties are entitled to due process of law before property rights may be removed; therefore, the minimal protection provided by Departmental adjudicatory procedures must meet that standard. Municipalities are thus likewise entitled to due process in the adjudication of claims to these tide and submerged lands.
Id. at 1317.