Court Opinion

ID: 9557977
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:01:16.851137+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:03.040357
License: Public Domain

THORNTON, J.,
specially concurring.
I concur in the result but do so for a different reason.
In my view the vice of plaintiffs’ complaint is that plaintiffs have not alleged a wrongful taking of their property, except that the taking was without plain*497tiffs’ knowledge. Plaintiffs allege that the taking was "without Plaintiff’s consent or knowledge.” Also plaintiffs allege:
"Plaintiffs’ property herein above mentioned was destroyed and taken by Defendant for the public purpose of eradicating a dangerous building which the Defendant felt presented a fire and health hazard.”
But neither of the above would, in my view, constitute a sufficient allegation that the taking was wrongful. In the absence of such an allegation defendant’s demurrer must be sustained.
Secondly, I cannot agree with the implication of the prevailing opinion that the wrongful destruction of a building by a governmental entity under the mistaken belief that it is a nuisance cannot constitute a taking for a "public use.”
In his treatise on eminent domain, Nichols states:
"* * * In all such cases [where governmental entity abates an alleged nuisance] the owner is entitled to a hearing at some stage of the proceedings on the question whether his property was, in fact, a nuisance, and if it was not, he is entitled to compensation for its destruction. It may well be a reasonable method and necessary for the public health to destroy first and investigate afterward; but if sound and valuable property is destroyed as a result of such necessity, it is taken for the public use in the constitutional sense and the owner is entitled to compensation. * * *” 1 Nichols, Law of Eminent Domain 1-230, § 1.42[15] (3d ed rev 1975).
The case of McMahon v. Telluride, 79 Colo 281, 244 P 1017 (1926), is directly in point. See, Annotation, 46 ALR 358 (1927). In that case, after the city council declared plaintiff’s building to be a nuisance, he moved it to a different part of his property and made substantial repairs to it. The city then destroyed the building. Plaintiff brought an action based on inverse condemnation, the trial court granted the city a non-suit, and plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court of Colorado, which held:
"Abatement of nuisances is a governmental function. *498* * * No liability can arise against a municipality for the destruction of property which is a nuisance, but it must be a nuisance in fact. * * *
"Where the property is not in fact a nuisance, if the city is not liable in tort * * * the municipality is nevertheless liable upon the theory that it must grant compensation for private property that it takes for public use. If certain property is in fact a nuisance, its destruction as such may not give rise to any right to compensation, but if property is destroyed under a mistaken belief that it is a nuisance, when in fact it is not a nuisance, it is taken for a 'public use’ within the meaning of the constitutional provisión, and the loss to the owner should be made good. * * *” 79 Colo at 284, 244 P at 1018. (Emphasis supplied.) Accord: Miles v. District of Columbia, 354 F Supp 577 (1973).
Finally, I am likewise not in accord with the implication in the prevailing opinion that acts done under the so-called "police power” cannot amount to a taking for which compensation is required by Art I, § 18, Oregon Constitution. Whether the source of the governmental authority involved is labeled "police power” or "power of eminent domain” should not be controlling in determining whether compensation is required, since the two are not always separate and distinct but instead often overlap. See, 1 Nichols, supra at § 1.42[1],