Haeussler v. Braun, 51470.
| Decision Date | 17 December 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 51470.,51470. |
| Parties | Winifred HAEUSSLER, et al., petitioners, Respondents, v. Richard BRAUN, Commissioner of Transportation, State of Minnesota, Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Warren Spannaus, Atty. Gen., and John Jeppesen, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Paul, for appellant.
Lauhead & Morrow and George T. Morrow II, Minneapolis, for respondents.
Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.
This is an appeal from an order of the Hennepin County District Court granting respondents a writ of mandamus directing the Commissioner of Transportation to institute eminent domain proceedings against respondents' properties. We reverse.
The issue is whether the trial court erred in finding that the state had taken respondents' properties without just compensation.
The controversy centers on one of the effects of the state's decision to build approximately 30 miles of sound barriers along Interstate 35W, which allegedly interferes with the respondents' implied easements for light, air, and view over a public street. The stretch of sound barriers complained of in the instant case was constructed in 1979 pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 161.125(1) (1980), which provides in pertinent part:
The commissioner of transportation shall, in accordance with the department\'s program, implement sound abatement measures within or along the perimeter of any interstate or trunk highway within incorporated areas located within the metropolitan area or any municipality whenever the noise level attributable to vehicular traffic at the abutting residential property line is in excess of the federal noise standards. The commissioner shall utilize federal matching funds available for constructing and maintaining sound abatement measures.
These particular barriers stand along both sides of Interstate 35W between the crossroads of 31st and 35th Streets in Minneapolis. The sound barriers consist of reinforced concrete pillars embedded in the ground to provide support. Nailing strips, to which long wood planking was nailed, were fastened to the pillars. The pillars face the interstate, leaving the smooth wooden wall to face the properties abutting the barriers. The barriers are the only structures that stand between respondents' properties and the interstate.
Respondents own properties that abut the frontage roads along this strip of 35W. Mr. and Mrs. Haeussler own a home that fronts on Second Avenue South, the frontage road located to the east of 35W. Their property lies on the east side of Second Avenue and faces the sound barrier that stands a few feet from the curb on the west side of Second Avenue. At the time this case was tried, the barrier had not been completed; only the concrete pillars were in place. The parties stipulated that the completed barrier will stand 23 feet tall at a distance of 55 feet from the Haeusslers' front property line. The parties further agreed that the presence of the barrier will affect the amount of sunlight reaching the Haeusslers' property in the afternoons. Mathematical calculations were performed to determine the amount of sunlight the property will lose on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. On each of those days the property will lose sunlight 25 minutes earlier at their west property line and 55 minutes earlier at their home's west foundation than it would were there no barrier between the Haeussler property and the interstate.
Mr. and Mrs. Gottsleben's home fronts on Stevens Avenue, the frontage road to the west of this section of 35W. The sound barrier across from the Gottsleben property had been fully constructed prior to trial. That barrier is 22 feet high and is located 53 feet from their east property line. Similar calculations were performed to determine the sound barrier's effect on the sunlight at the Gottslebens' home on each of the equinoxes. On these days the Gottslebens will lose 74 minutes of morning sunlight at their east property line and 47 minutes at the east foundation of their home.
Mr. DeNoma also owns property on this portion of Stevens Avenue. A sound barrier of 21 feet is located 55 feet from his east property line. The mathematical calculations indicate that its presence will cause the morning sunlight to reach the DeNoma property 70 minutes later at the east property line and 47 minutes later at the east foundation of the home.
The respondents argued that they have suffered in ways other than the loss of sunlight due to the presence of the sound barriers. Mrs. Gottsleben testified that the barrier cuts off the view of the highway and traps on her side of the barrier the exhaust fumes from the cars using the frontage road. As a result, she and her husband no longer have breakfast or their morning coffee on the front porch, and they keep their windows closed most of the time. Mr. DeNoma testified that the trapped air burns his nostrils and that as a result of the loss of sunlight, he and his wife use their front room and front door less frequently. In addition, he stated that the sight of the barrier causes his wife to feel depressed and she therefore spends more time sleeping and that he has lost his desire to take care of their yard. Mrs. Haeussler testified that the presence of the wall makes her feel like she is living in a ghetto and as a result she suffers from writers' block and is therefore unable to complete her unfinished novel and stories.
The testimony of a civil engineer confirmed the respondents' observations relative to the barriers' impact on the air flow around their properties. Although the presence of the barriers channelizes the pollution from the highway, keeping it for the most part localized between the barriers, it alters the wind flow across the properties downwind of the barriers. This results in air eddies, and has the effect of trapping the pollution from the frontage roads on the abutting landowners' side of the sound barriers.
The respondents brought their action in inverse condemnation, arguing that the erection of the sound barriers had substantially interfered with their implied easements for light, air, and view,1 resulting in a taking of these property interests. The trial court agreed and issued a writ of mandamus directing the Commissioner of Transportation to commence condemnation proceedings.
1. Respondents argued below that their property had been taken without just compensation in violation of Minn.Const. art. 1, § 13, which provides that "private property shall not be taken, destroyed or damaged for public use without just compensation therefor." The property allegedly taken consists of respondents' implied easements for light, air, and view over the public streets fronting their homes. We find no taking has occurred.
This state has long recognized that a landowner owning property abutting a public street possesses as appurtenant to his lot implied easements for light, air, and view over the public street. Adams v. Chicago, Burlington & Northern Railway, 39 Minn. 286, 39 N.W. 629 (1888); see McCarthy v. City of Minneapolis, 203 Minn. 427, 281 N.W. 759 (1938). These easements extend to the full width of the street and are independent of any fee interest in the street held by the landowner. Adams, 39 Minn. at 295-296, 39 N.W. at 63.
The implied easements for light, air, and view are a limited interest in property, subservient to the public right to travel on the roadway. Conversely, the public easement is broad. As this court stated long ago:
If there is any one fact established in the history of society and of the law itself, it is that the mode of exercising the public easement is expansive, developing and growing as civilization advances. In the most primitive state of society the conception of a highway was merely a footpath; in a slightly more advanced state it included the idea of a way for pack animals; and, next, a way for vehicles drawn by animals, — constituting, respectively, the "iter", the "actus", and the "via" of the Romans. And thus the methods of using public highways expanded with the growth of civilization, until to-day our urban highways are devoted to a variety of uses not known in former times, and never dreamed of by the owners of the soil when the public easement was acquired. Hence it has become settled law that the easement is not limited to the particular methods of use in vogue when the easement was acquired, but includes all new and improved methods, the utility and general convenience of which may afterwards be discovered and developed in aid of the general purpose for which highways are designed. And it is not material that these new and improved methods of use were not contemplated by the owner of the land when the easement was acquired, and are more onerous to him than those in use.
Cater v. Northwestern Telephone Exchange Co., 60 Minn. 539, 543, 63 N.W. 111, 112 (1895).
It is this public easement that defines, qualifies, and limits the implied easements for light, air, and view. See Sauer v. New York, 206 U.S. 536, 547-548, 27 S.Ct. 686, 689-90, 51 L.Ed. 1176 (1906). Therefore, any interference with the light, air, and view over a public street that results from the public's use of the street as a street, that is, from a proper street use, must be suffered by the abutting landowner without complaint to the courts. This is so because the implied easements do not entitle the landowner to every particle of sunlight or air that passes over the street. Rather, he is only entitled to the air, light, and view that are not obstructed by a proper street use.
This court first discussed the concept of "proper street use" in Adams. In holding that the placing of a railroad upon a public street was a perversion of the street, we stated that:
the private right in a street is of course subordinate to the public right. The latter right is for use as a public street, and the incidental right to put and keep it in condition for such use, and for no other...
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