Court Opinion

ID: 9546169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:25:46.616522+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:04.292689
License: Public Domain

HOWE, Justice
(dissenting):
I dissent from what I perceive to be a very narrow application of the rules of “standing” to the plaintiff. The Land Board had before it two competing proposals. Terracor’s proposal was to exchange land. Bloomington Knolls’ proposal was to lease the state land and subdivide it for home sites. The Board rejected Terracor’s proposal and accepted the proposal of Bloomington Knolls’. Terracor protested to the Board, and now protests to this Court, that the Board has no statutory authority to lease state lands and that in so doing unfair competition resulted.
The majority concedes that “one who attempts to purchase the same school lands as another and loses out to the other person, would have standing.” Yet the majority holds that Terracor has no standing even though it was attempting to acquire the same lands as its competitor Blooming-ton Knolls but proposed to do so by exchange rather than by leasing. Why that difference should destroy Terracor’s standing completely eludes me. The majority seems to find comfort in the fact that Ter-racor declined the Board’s invitation to make its proposal more attractive. Terra-cor, thereafter, the majority argues, had no interest and lacked standing to question what the Board did with the land. I cannot subscribe to this reasoning. In the first place, Terracor’s rejection came simultaneous with Bloomington Knolls’ acceptance. The rejection and the acceptance *801were not separated by a period of time. Secondly, the interest of a competitor does not necessarily dissipate when its proposal is rejected. It remains interested in what the Board does thereafter with the land, especially when, as alleged here, the Board disposes of it in an alleged unlawful transaction which should be set aside and the land restored to the Board.
The majority endeavors to find support for its holding that Terracor lacks standing because “Terracor does not assert in this action that the Board erred in refusing Terracor’s proposed exchange.” That argument leads nowhere. Of course, the Board has discretion in choosing proposals before it. Neither Terracor nor any other competitor could validly argue that the Board was obliged to accept its proposal. However, what Terracor is contending for is that the Board accepted a proposal which it could not lawfully do. When unlawful proposals are removed from consideration by the Board, the Board is left to reconsider the remaining proposals. Furthermore, as long as the land remains in the hands of the Board, a competitor is afforded the continuing opportunity to “sweeten” his proposal.
DURHAM, J., concurs in the dissenting opinion of HOWE, J.