Drummond Co., Inc. v. Ala. Dept. of Transp.
Decision Date | 24 February 2006 |
Docket Number | 1030447. |
Citation | 937 So.2d 56 |
Parties | Ex parte State of Alabama. (In re DRUMMOND COMPANY, INC., and Cedrum Land Company, LLP v. ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION). |
Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Isaac P. Espy, of Espy, Nettles, Scogin & Brantley, P.C., Tuscaloosa, deputy atty. gen., for petitioner.
William Anthony Davis III, Philip G. Piggott, and P. Andrew Laird, Jr., of Starnes & Atchison, LLP, Birmingham; and Joseph C. Espy III of Melton, Espy & Williams, Montgomery, for respondent.
The State of Alabama petitions this Court for a writ of mandamus directing Judge Charles Price of the Montgomery Circuit Court to dismiss the inverse-condemnation claim of Drummond Company, Inc., and Cedrum Land Company, LLP, against the Alabama Department of Transportation ("ADOT") based on the constitutional immunity of the State of Alabama from being sued.
Drummond Company, Inc., and Cedrum Land Company, LLP, filed an inverse-condemnation action against ADOT, alleging the taking of mineral rights in land parcels acquired to complete the "Corridor X" highway project connecting Birmingham, Alabama, with Memphis, Tennessee. ADOT filed a motion to dismiss the inverse-condemnation action based on the constitutional immunity of the State. See Ala. Const. Art. I, § 14. The circuit court denied the motion, and the State of Alabama filed a petition for a writ of mandamus requesting that this Court direct the trial court to substitute the director of ADOT for ADOT as the defendant in the litigation.
Ex parte Wood, 852 So.2d 705, 708 (Ala. 2002). A petition for a writ of mandamus is the proper vehicle by which to seek review of the denial of a motion to dismiss based on the ground of State immunity:
Ex parte Haralson, 853 So.2d 928, 931 n. 2 (Ala.2003).
853 So.2d at 931 (citations omitted).
This Court has recognized an inverse-condemnation action as an exception to the doctrine of State immunity:
Ex parte Carter, 395 So.2d 65, 68 (Ala. 1980) (emphasis added).
As this Court stated in Carter, however, inverse-condemnation actions are to be "brought against State officials in their representative capacity." This Court has decided cases in which the State or one of its agencies was a party defendant, but those cases did not involve an assertion of a constitutional-immunity defense. In a recent inverse-condemnation case, Alabama Department of Transportation v. Land Energy, Ltd., 886 So.2d 787, 789 n. 1 (Ala.2004), this Court noted:
In Engelhardt v. Jenkins, 273 Ala. 352, 354, 141 So.2d 193, 195 (1962), a case in which the State Highway Department condemned the plaintiffs' property, the Court stated, "no sort of rationale can bring the case within the ban of § 14 of our constitution, prohibiting suits against the State or its agencies," and allowed the condemnation case to go...
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