An Ally In Your Battle To Protect Your Rights

ON YOUR PROPERTY RIGHTS AND CHIEF JUSTICE LORIE SKJERVEN GILDEA

Lorie Skjerven Gildea is the Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.  She is the strongest voice in Minnesota history for protecting your rights as a law-abiding citizen to own the property for which you have paid or you are paying.

Frequently, there are bureaucrats or legislators who will try to take your property or restrict your property through regulation.  The government also may help other parties to take nor regulate your lawful use of your property.  The government may also restrict your rights by ignoring the rules on taxes and regulatory inspections.  You also have rights that must be enforced when foreclosure is being pursued.

Here are one- or two-page explanations of 38 cases where Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea has stood strong for your property rights.

PROPERTY TAKINGS:  Here are brief discussions of nine cases regarding government attempts to take your private property or allow corporations or other people to take your land with or without payment. 

“TAKINGS” BY REGULATION:  Here are brief discussions of sixteen cases where the government tried to restrict owners’ legal use of their land without compensation to the point that the land lost significant value. 

OTHER REGULATIONS ON PROPERTY:  Here are four brief discussions of regulations on property and privacy.  The first case decides whether local “safety” ordinances can be stricter than the state building code.  The other three cases involved evolving rules for “health and safety” inspections of rental properties and the standards of “probable cause” for administrative search warrants.

FORECLOSURE:  The next six cases deal with the rights of property owners and lenders in foreclosure cases.

PROPERTY TAXES:  These three decisions deal with questions about property taxes. 

Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea has a steady hand and a sharp eye to protect your property rights.

Questions About Your Right To Own Private Property In Minnesota

1.  Can the government take your home or part or all of your land?

2.  Can the government give a corporation or another person the power to take your home or your land if they convince the politicians or bureaucrats that they can do better things with it than you can?

3.  Do tenants have rights if the government takes their landlord's property?

4.  If the government takes a 50-foot strip off your land, but you do not know that until you re-survey the property thirty years later, can you still deserve compensation?

5.  Is your homestead still protected if a family member is convicted of a drug crime?

6.  If the government takes your land, how is a fair level of compensation to be determined?

7.  If a regulation or a road project cuts off your access to your land, can you get a new route or access?

8.  What happens when a government regulation destroys or sharply reduces the value of your land?

9.  What happens when politicians say you can no longer have your campground, a golf course, ur your store in your city?

10.  What happens when your local government gives you a permit to build a house, but a state agency says you cannot, even though the state agency does not have the authority to block you?

11.  What happens when bureaucrats delay your efforts to get a permit, sometimes for over ten years, without making a decision?

12.  Is it your fault if you ignore limits in your permit if you claim you never read your permit?

13.  If you own your house and 2.4 acres in the country, can your neighbor block you from adding a room where you want to do yoga and arts and crafts?

14.  Can the local government search your property without a warrant or probable cause to believe you have violated laws or local rules?

15.  Will your rights be enforced if you get involved in losing or buying a foreclosed property?

16.  Can you avoid "check-kiting" charges if you protest by intentionally using a bad check to "pay" your property taxes with a bad check?

17.  Can a City avoid a ban on taxing church property by disguising an assessment as a "fee" as a "tax?"

You have federal and state rights when someone interferes with your property rights.  You need Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea to assess  the facts, apply the aw, and protect your rights!

Nine Cases On "Government Takings" Of Private Property

PROPERTY TAKINGS:  Here are brief discussions of nine cases regarding government attempts to take your private property. 

In three decisions, with the Legislature’s help, huge utilities tried to take family homes, farms, and businesses for a multi-billion-dollar power-line between the Monticello power plant and the Rockies without paying the required fair compensation.  Gildea saved family farms, home owners, and tenants.

In a fourth situation, the government tried to take land without fair compensation just because the family did not discover the uncompensated "taking" for three decades.  Gildea said, "if you take, you must pay."

In a fifth case, where the government took a business site, the language of the lease was crucial in allocating the government’s payment for the taken property.  Gildea ruled tenants have rights, which they can waive.

A sixth case emphasized Minnesota’s protection of a family homestead, even from drug forfeitures.  Gildea noted that homesteads have had special protection against all uncompensated "takings."

Two more cases laid out the way courts should define fair compensation for certain kinds of property “takings” cases. Gildea noted that Minnesota's oldest laws hold that "Private property shall not be taken without just compensation."

In a ninth case, the Supreme Court considered a problem where a government taking of two neighbors’ land for a highway led to the need for a second “taking” of a strip of a third neighbor’s land to give access by the first two neighbors to their own long driveways.

The Most Humble Farm Is Protected in "Takings" Cases

1/ “SAVE THE FARM”:  The Minnesota Legislature decided it was important to help utilities to build a huge power-line between the nuclear power plant at Monticello and a transfer station in Fargo.  To help the utilities, the Legislature gave them the power to go into court and seek “eminent domain” power to build seven-story towers on people’s land for the CapX2020 power-line project. 

Some of these towers were to be built just 150 feet from people’s houses.  The line extends 700 miles toward the Pacific Northwest.

To protect the land-owners’ rights, the Legislature required that owners could either negotiate settlements with the utilities to tolerate the towers, or they could ask a court to set a fair price and require the utilities to buy their property.  This was called the “Buy the Farm” option.

Dale and Janet Tauer owned a nine-acre farmstead, and they elected to require the utilities to buy the entire property for a fair price, as required by the statute.  The utilities’ lawyers asked the courts to ignore the statute and consider how small the foot-print of the tower would be compared to the nine-acre plot.

Chief Justice Lorie Gildea wrote: “Absent a constitutional challenge, which this case does not present, we are limited to interpreting the plain language of the statute.  Great River’s proposed interpretation of the Buy-the-Farm statute adds factors to the statute, is inconsistent with the statute’s language, and is unsupported by our case law.  In approving the election, the district court considered the factors listed in the plain language of the statute; the district court found that the Tauers’ land is contiguous, commercially viable, and non-homestead agricultural land.  Great River does not dispute these findings and that ends the inquiry.”

READ THE FULL CASE DECISION:
Great River Energy, et al., Appellants, vs David D. Swedzinski, et al., Respondents.

March 4, 2015    A13-1474,               2015-022*      

https://mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/supct/2015/OPA131474-030415.pdf

The Most Humble Home Is Protected In "Takings" Cases

2/ “SAVE THE HOUSE”:  Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea joined Justice Alan Page in protecting the rights of homeowners who were faced with seven-story towers just outside their bedrooms in houses between St. Cloud and Monticello.

The home-owners had been promised the same rights to due process and compensation as the farmers when the Legislature gave the utilities the power of “eminent domain” to seek “quit claim” seizures of land for the CapX2020 power-line.

The utilities’ lawyers tried to claim that homeowners did not really have the right to either negotiate settlements with the utilities to tolerate the towers, or to ask a court to set a fair price and require the utilities to buy their property.

The Supreme Court held that property owners had the right to seek costs for replacing their homes and moving to comparable housing.


READ THE FULL CASE DECISION: 

Northern States Power Company,et al., Respondents, vs. Roger A. Aleckson, et al., Appellants.

May 29, 2013   A11-1116,   2013-078            https://mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/supct/1305/OPA111116-0529.pdf

Tenants Can Also Be Protected From "Takings" Of Land

3/ PROPERTY RIGHTS OF TENANTS ARE PROTECTED IN EMINENT DOMAIN CASES TOO:  Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea joined with Justice Alan Page in solidifying the rights of tenants to due process and compensation when the power of “eminent domain” is used to force them from their homes.

The Supreme Court held: “Great care must be exercised to ensure that tenants are treated fairly and equitably.  For example, if the tenant-occupant of a dwelling will not be displaced, but is required to relocate temporarily in connection with the project, the temporarily occupied housing must be decent, safe, and sanitary and the tenant must be reimbursed for all reasonable out-of-pocket expenses incurred in connection with the temporary relocation. Temporary relocation should not extend beyond one year before the person is returned to his or her previous unit or location.”

READ THE FULL CASE DECISION: 
Northern States Power Company,et al., Respondents, vs. Roger A. Aleckson, et al., Appellants.

May 29, 2013   A11-1116,   2013-078            

https://mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/supct/1305/OPA111116-0529.pdf
See Page 14 of the Opinion.

"Because The Government Says So" Is Not A Substitute For Required Compensaation

7/ “THEY DON’T GET TO KEEP IT WITHOUT PAYING JUST BECAUSE THEY TOOK IT”:  Then-Justice Gildea wrote for the Supreme Court against uncompensated government taking of private property in this case.

The Hebert family registered six plots of land on the north shore of Mitchell Lake in 1953.  The City of Fifty Lakes built a gravel road abutting the north edge of the Herbert plots and other lakefront properties in 1971.  The public used the road for over 30 years.  When re-surveying the plots in 2004, the Heberts discovered that the City had shaved off strips up to 49 feet wide off the north sides of the plots.

The City refused to shift the road-bed.  The City refused to compensate the Heberts, claiming that too much time had passed before the Heberts made a claim.  The City claimed that it had a right to preserve an uncompensated “de facto” taking of the Hebert land.

First, Justice Gildea rejected the City’s claim that it had earned the right to keep the Heberts’ land without compensation in this case through “de facto” taking of the property.  She wrote that “eminent domain proceedings provide private landowners with notice, due process of law, and the opportunity to secure just and fair compensation.  In contrast to the government’s initiation of eminent domain proceedings, a de facto taking would operate informally in this case because there was no court action or formal process initiated by the City.  Allowing the City to acquire the land at issue here by de facto taking would operate in the same way as if the City acquired the land by adverse possession in that in both situations, a landowner is deprived of rights to land due to actions of another.  For all of these reasons, we hold that the City did not acquire an interest in the land at issue by de facto taking.”

Second, Justice Gildea ruled that the passage of time would not bar relief for the property owners if the incursion onto their land was “continuing."

Finally, Justice Gildea returned the case to the trial court for determinations of fact and, if justified, the form and amount of relief for the land owners that should be granted.

She also noted: “Our holding should not be misinterpreted to preclude owners of Torrens property from seeking compensation under the Takings Clause in either the United States or Minnesota Constitution. This issue is not before us and we express no opinion on it.”


READ THE FULL CASE DECISION: 

John Wesley Hebert, et al., Respondents, vs. City of Fifty Lakes, Appellant.

January 17, 2008 2008-008            https://mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/supct/0801/OPA060215-0117.pdf