Biddle v. Baa Indianapolis, LLC
| Decision Date | 23 January 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 32S05-0602-CV-33.,32S05-0602-CV-33. |
| Citation | 860 N.E.2d 570 |
| Parties | Andrew BIDDLE, Jeanette Biddle, Todd Fakes, Rosalyn Fakes, Tammy Gardner, William Gardner, Brenda Jay, Jeffrey Jay, Khousar Kheiri, Arif Kheiri, Bryan Meyer, Judith Meyer, Raymond Shannon, Sherry Shannon, Cathy Smiley, and Robert Smiley, Appellants (Plaintiffs below), v. BAA INDIANAPOLIS, LLC and Indianapolis Airport Authority, Appellees (Defendants below). |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Steven K. Huffer, Indianapolis, IN, Attorney for Appellants.
Nelson Nettles, Richard Norris, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee BAA Indianapolis, LLC.
Edward W. Harris, III, Scott R. Alexander, Michael D. Chambers, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee Indianapolis Airport Authority.
F. Bradford Johnson, Indianapolis, IN, Scott M. Dutcher, Sacramento, CA, Attorneys for Amicus Curiae Pacific Legal Foundation.
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 32A05-0409-CV-505.
Homeowners near Indianapolis International Airport contend that noise from airplanes passing over or near their property amounts to a taking within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. The homeowners also say the Airport should be compelled to offer them financial settlements similar to those offered to earlier litigants. The trial court granted summary judgment for the Airport, and we affirm.
The Appellants ("Homeowners")1 live in Hawthorne Ridge, a subdivision within three miles of Indianapolis International Airport. Indianapolis Airport Authority ("IAA"), a municipal corporation created by the City of Indianapolis, owns the Airport. BAA Indianapolis, LLC ("BAA") operates the Airport under a contract with IAA.
The Airport's Runway 5L-23R opened for aircraft operations in January 1996.2 Aircraft departing from Runway 23R and landing on Runway 5L pass over or near Hawthorne Ridge, southwest of the Airport. Both large passenger jets and cargo aircraft, among others, use the runway. Landing aircraft fly about 1,300 to 1,500 feet above ground level as they pass Hawthorne Ridge. Departing aircraft fly 2,000 to 4,800 feet above the ground as they pass Hawthorne Ridge.
Obviously, these flights subject Hawthorne Ridge to aircraft noise. Many Homeowners claim the noise disturbs the use and enjoyment of their property by disrupting activities such as sleeping, talking, watching television or listening to the radio, hosting outdoor parties, reading, and opening windows. Some claim their property value has decreased between fifteen and thirty-three percent.
Addressing the impact of the Airport's operations on neighboring communities, IAA has elected to participate in three federal programs: the Sales Assistance Program, Sound Insulation/Purchase Assurance Program, and Guaranteed Purchase Program.3 These programs cover nine residential developments. For example, sixty-one Hawthorne Ridge households have participated in the Sales Assistance Program. Under this scheme, IAA pays qualifying homeowners ten percent of the selling price of their home when it is sold to a third party. In return, homeowners agree to include a "Noise Disclosure Statement" in the deed of conveyance.
Homeowners allege that during public meetings in 1997 and 1998, representatives of IAA and BAA made statements about the Airport's policy for "dealing with the damage caused by excessive noise through financial settlement or otherwise." (Appellants' App. at 205.) These representatives indicated that the Airport would "treat neighbors alike" and would not "break up a neighborhood." (Id.) The representatives also made statements to the effect "IAA has a policy of not splitting neighborhoods" for the purposes of IAA's land use programs.4 (Id. at 206.) None of the present Homeowners were present at these meetings.
In 1999, some forty residents of Hawthorne Ridge, not including these Homeowners, filed suit against IAA and BAA ("Backs lawsuit"). The parties settled on terms that included a $16,000 payment to each plaintiff in exchange for an "avigation" easement in favor of the Airport. The settlement also provided if the plaintiffs could not sell their homes for what the market price would be without airport influence, IAA would make up the difference or purchase the home.
Homeowners sued IAA and BAA in 2001. Homeowners asserted multiple claims, but withdrew many of them in the course of the hearing on the defendants' motions for summary judgment. The trial court granted judgment to the defendants on those that remained: inverse condemnation, nuisance, and promissory estoppel. On the inverse condemnation claim, the trial court concluded that Homeowners did not suffer a special injury and that the flights were too high to constitute a taking. Relying on standard Fifth Amendment doctrine, it found that the flights did not cause "practical destruction" of the Homeowners' properties. (Appellants' App. at 55-56.) As for the promissory estoppel claim, the court found those Homeowners not present at the public meetings where promises were allegedly made could not maintain they received a promise.5
Homeowners left the nuisance claim behind and appealed only the inverse condemnation and promissory estoppel claims. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a trial on the merits.6 Biddle v. BAA Indianapolis, LLC, 830 N.E.2d 76 (Ind.Ct.App.2005), vacated. We granted transfer.7
Homeowners claim they have shown that aircraft departing from and landing at the Airport effect a taking of Homeowners' properties by the noise the aircraft produce when they fly nearby. Homeowners also claim to have shown they suffer a special injury in accordance with the requirements of our prior inverse condemnation cases.
IAA argues that because flights within the navigable airspace do not cause a taking, Homeowners cannot succeed on their inverse condemnation claim.
Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the movant shows he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Ind. Trial Rule 56(C).
Whether a taking occurred can be subject to summary judgment. Taylor-Chalmers, Inc. v. Bd. of Comm'rs of LaPorte County, 474 N.E.2d 531, 536 (Ind.Ct. App.1985) (Hoffman, J., concurring) . Accord Beck v. City of Evansville, 842 N.E.2d 856, 863-64 (Ind.Ct.App.2006) ().
And, as several other states have held, appellate review of whether a taking occurred is proper. Wild Rice River Estates, Inc. v. City of Fargo, 705 N.W.2d 850, 854 (N.D.2005) (); Eberth v. Carlson, 266 Kan. 726, 731, 971 P.2d 1182, 1186 (1999) (); Mayhew v. Town of Sunnyvale, 964 S.W.2d 922, 932-33 (Tex.1998) (citing United States v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256, 259, 66 S.Ct. 1062, 90 L.Ed. 1206 (1946)) ("the ultimate determination of whether the facts are sufficient to constitute a taking is a question of law," implying that de novo review is appropriate). But see Thornburg v. Port of Portland, 233 Or. 178, 192, 376 P.2d 100, 106-07 (1962) ().
Once a taking is found, the question of how much compensation to award is then appropriate for a trier of fact.
In the American colonial period, law in the colonies was that the Crown could revoke at will its grant of property. During the Revolution, there was widespread belief in the power of the common good (called "republicanism") and in the trust-worthiness of legislatures. The newly independent states adopted constitutions granting nearly plenary power to legislatures. None of the first state constitutions contained provisions for just compensation; indeed, only three included clauses regulating government taking of property.8 When colonial draftsmen did perceive the need to restrain the seizure of real property, they thought it adequate simply to require that seizure occur only by act of the legislature.9
It was not until the summer of the Philadelphia constitutional convention that the idea of compensation for taking real property became a part of the national government's political agenda. The Confederation Congress, meeting in New York, placed such a provision in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.10 By this time, excesses even by the Continental military fomented a discontent that eventually led to the adoption of the Fifth Amendment takings clause.11
Thus, the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution states: "[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." U.S. Const. amend. V.
The amendment's principal author, James Madison, believed government should take a reverent view toward the property of its citizens by refraining from harming their property in any way. For example, in his "Speech Opposing Paper Money" before the Virginia Assembly, Madison argued that because paper money depreciates, it "affects Rights of property as much as taking away equal value in land." Its use, he added, is like the 9 James Madison, The Papers of James Madison 158-59 (R. Rutland et al. eds., University of Chicago Press 1975) (quoting Madison's "Notes for Speech Opposing Paper Money").12
Like the other framers, Madison intended...
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