When The Government Cuts You Off From Your Land

27/ “WHEN ONE TAKING REQUIRES A SECOND TAKING”:  To improve Highway 61 in Cook County, the state had to cut off access to two neighbors’ long driveways.  To restore the neighbors’ access to the land from different angle, the state needed to take a slice of Richard Lepak’s land for an access road.

Lepak challenged the second taking with a claim that this was not for a “public use.”  Lepak lost in the district court and the Court of Appeals.

Chief Justice Gildea joined a unanimous Supreme Court in finding that a public purpose did exist for the taking.  The opinion included a discussion of the power of eminent domain.

“Under the U.S. Constitution, private property shall not “be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The Minnesota Constitution similarly provides that “[p]rivate property shall not be taken, destroyed or damaged for public use without just compensation therefor, first paid or secured.” 

"MnDOT is authorized by the Legislature to condemn property to carry out constitutionally mandated goals.  Article 14, section 2, of the Minnesota Constitution creates “a trunk highway system which shall be constructed, improved and maintained as public highways by the state.”  State law provides that the Commissioner of MnDOT “shall carry out the provisions of the Constitution of the state of Minnesota.” 

"In line with that directive, “[t]he [C]ommissioner is authorized to acquire by purchase, gift, or by eminent domain proceedings as provided by law, in fee or such lesser estate as the Commissioner deems necessary, all lands and properties necessary . . . in laying out, constructing, maintaining, and improving the trunk highway system” and “to locate, construct, reconstruct, improve, and maintain the trunk highway system.”  In this manner, MnDOT acts on behalf of the Legislature, in which the sovereign power to condemn private property is vested, to conduct the essential legislative function at issue in this case.”


READ THE FULL CASE DECISION: 

Commissioner of Transportation, Respondent, vs. Richard Lepak, Appellant.

August 10, 2011   2011-081           

https://mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/supct/1108/OPA091894-0810.pdf