Court Opinion

ID: 9495866
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:12:27.61136+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:14.730906
License: Public Domain

BYE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
A governmental entity does not have carte blanche authority to take property so long as just compensation is paid; the Constitution also requires that the taking be for a public purpose. In eminent domain and condemnation proceedings, the well-established rule has been that no pre-deprivation hearing is required as long as there are adequate post-deprivation remedies for compensation. See, e.g., Collier v. City of Springdale, 733 F.2d 1311, 1314 (8th Cir.1984). But compensation is not the issue here. Rex asks what pre-depri-vation process is due a party who ques*530tions the public nature of the taking rather than the adequacy of the compensation.
Condemnation proceedings (excepting inverse condemnation) take place pursuant to established state policies and procedures. The presumptive rule applied to due process claims requires a pre-deprivation hearing when property is taken pursuant to an established state policy or procedure. E.g., Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 433, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982). Thus, the question squarely raised by Rex is which rule should give way under the circumstances involved in this case. Should a pre-depri-vation hearing be required under Logan because eminent domain proceedings take place pursuant to established procedures, or should no pre-deprivation hearing be required because the courts have not before imposed that constitutional requirement in the realm of eminent domain and condemnation proceedings?
We avoid explicitly answering that question by focusing on Rex’s right to collaterally attack the condemnation of its property in its own lawsuit. Rex clearly had notice of the City’s intentions well before the condemnation actually took place, and thus had an opportunity to petition a court for injunctive relief to stop the City if the taking was indeed for an impermissible private purpose. But the Due Process Clause requires both notice and an opportunity to be heard. Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 542, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 84 L.Ed.2d 494 (1985). Rex contends that reliance on the availability of a collateral attack, initiated by the alleged victim of unconstitutional conduct, renders nugatory the hearing requirements of the Due Process Clause because a collateral attack is always theoretically possible when pre-deprivation notice is given.
I am intrigued by that argument, and troubled by our reliance on Rex’s ability to bring its own lawsuit as the grounds for affirming the district court. Nevertheless, I join in affirming the judgment in favor of the City, because I do not believe a pre-deprivation hearing is required under the circumstances present in this case.
I think we first need to identify the crux of Rex’s claim before we can decide whether a pre-deprivation hearing is required. Rex presents this claim as a procedural due process claim. I am not convinced that Rex has a viable procedural due process claim. There is some support for the notion that, in a case such as this, the only question is whether the Takings Clause was violated, not whether the Due Process Clause was violated. In other words, because a specific constitutional provision covers Rex’s constitutional claim, the due process claim collapses into the takings claim. See generally Coniston Corp. v. Village of Hoffman Estates, 844 F.2d 461, 464-66 (7th Cir.1988). While such a notion has more appeal as applied to substantive due process claims rather than procedural due process claims, see id. at 465, at least one circuit has extended this analysis to procedural due process claims as well:
Because the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment imposes very specific obligations upon the government when it seeks to take private property, we are reluctant in the context of a factual situation that falls squarely within that clause to impose new and potentially inconsistent obligations upon the parties under the substantive or procedural components of the Due Process Clause. It is appropriate in this case to subsume the more generalized Fourteenth Amendment due process protections within the more particularized protections of the Just Compensation Clause.
Miller v. Campbell County, 945 F.2d 348, 352 (10th Cir.1991) (emphasis added); but *531see John Corp. v. City of Houston, 214 F.3d 573, 582-83 (5th Cir.2000) (collecting and discussing the cases declining to collapse due process claims into takings claims).
If Rex’s procedural due process claim is really just a takings claim in disguise, I arrive at the same conclusion reached in the majority opinion. No pre-deprivation hearing is required. Rex has adequate post-deprivation remedies available to vindicate the alleged constitutional wrong, i.e., a collateral attack under Iowa common law, or a suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging the City violated the Takings Clause. Rex’s remedy, however, would not be a § 1983 action claiming a procedural violation of the Due Process Clause based on the City’s failure to hold a hearing. Rex purportedly wants a hearing before the City, prior to the actual condemnation, to air the issue whether the taking is public or private in nature. But hasn’t the City already made that determination by initiating the condemnation? I suggest what Rex really seeks is a hearing before an impartial adjudicator (i.e., a judicial forum) to review the constitutionality of the City’s determination under the Takings Clause. Rex cannot receive that kind of relief in a hearing before the City, either before the condemnation or after it.
Even if we analyze Rex’s claim as a procedural due process claim, however, I am not convinced a pre-deprivation hearing is required. We analyze procedural due process claims in two-steps. First, we determine whether the plaintiff has a constitutionally protected interest in life, liberty, or property. Krentz v. Robertson, 228 F.3d 897, 902 (8th Cir.2000). Second, we determine how much process is due. Id. Since Rex’s interest in its own property is undisputed, the only issue here is how much process Rex was due.
The determination of how much process is due in any given situation requires a balancing of three factors:
First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976).
A balancing of the Mathews v. Eldridge factors, as applied to a party’s challenge to the public nature of a taking, weighs against the necessity for a pre-deprivation hearing. In particular, I believe the risk of an erroneous deprivation is very slight. I suspect in the vast majority of eminent domain proceedings there will be no dispute about whether the governmental entity has a legitimate public purpose in condemning private property — the only issue will be how much compensation is due. Thus, the government should not have to provide a pre-deprivation hearing in every case for the sake of those few cases that involve a challenge to the public nature of the taking. Such a requirement would impose significant new fiscal and administrative burdens on governmental entities that have not before been constitutionally required in eminent domain proceedings. I do not believe that result is justified, given the slight chance a governmental entity will impermissibly take property for a private purpose.
I therefore concur in affirming the district court.