Court Opinion

ID: 9665945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:00:11.633335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:20.984632
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON REHEARING
In response to the Motion for Rehearing, we add the following: This opinion does not say and does not imply the condemnor cannot make offers for and purchase property and rights which it cannot acquire by condemnation proceedings. However, such an offer should be made separate and apart from the offer made as a prerequisite by law to condemnation. This does not mean the property to be condemned cannot be a part of the separate offer, as long as the owner is given the opportunity to sell at a specific price only that property subject to condemnation.
Furthermore, a threat or pretense of condemnation made by the condemnor on land or for rights not subject to condemnation and made in order to obtain additional property or rights constitutes a wrongful act and an abuse of the right of eminent domain.
It is the duty of the condemnor to make such an offer, and there is no requirement that the landowner make any type of counteroffer. The landowner is not compelled to negotiate or consider an offer on land or rights not subject to condemnation.
As to the so-called greater-ineludes-the-lesser theory, if this were the law, it would allow the condemnor to make an offer on a 500-acre tract of land that had been in the landowner’s family for five generations, that contained the home of the landowner, numerous improvements made by the landowner, and other properties unconnected with the condemnation when the area sought to be condemned involved only a small strip in the corner of the property. The condemnor could then, under that theory, say that the negotiated offer required under the statute had been made. Such an offer would in no way have any connection with the property to be condemned, and certainly the Legislature could not have intended for such an offer, even though the greater included the lesser, to be considered a good-faith negotiation in an attempt to purchase the property to be condemned.
Eminent domain proceeding can be simplified by simply following the statute and the legislative intent by making an offer only for the property to be condemned.