Housing and Redevelopment Authority ex rel. City of Richfield v. Adelmann

• Decision Date: 25 March 1999
• Docket Number: C6-97-1811,Nos. C2-97-980,C7-97-1199,s. C2-97-980
• Citation: 590 N.W.2d 327
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court
• Parties: The HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY In and For the CITY OF RICHFIELD, a Minnesota public body corporate and politic, petitioner, Appellant, v. Daniel ADELMANN, Trustee of the Robert F. Adelmann Trust; et al., Respondents (C2-97-980, C6-97-1811), District Court Respondent (C7-97-1199), F & D Properties, a partnership consisting of Dayle R. Erickson and Fred C. Talbot, Respondent, Naegele Outdoor Advertising, Inc., Respondent (C2-97-980, C6-97-1811), District Court Respondent (C7-97-1199), Top Line Cycle, Inc., et al., District Court Respondents.

Page 327

590 N.W.2d 327

The HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY In and For the CITY OF RICHFIELD, a Minnesota public body corporate and politic, petitioner, Appellant, v. Daniel ADELMANN, Trustee of the Robert F. Adelmann Trust et al., Respondents (C2-97-980, C6-97-1811) District Court Respondent (C7-97-1199) F & D Properties, a partnership consisting of Dayle R Erickson and Fred C. Talbot, Respondent, Naegele Outdoor Advertising, Inc., Respondent (C2-97-980, C6-97-1811), District Court Respondent (C7-97-1199), Top Line Cycle, Inc., et al., District Court Respondents.

Nos. C2-97-980, C7-97-1199, C6-97-1811.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 25, 1999.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Strict compliance with the notice requirements of Minn.Stat. § 117.115, subd. 2 is not a jurisdictional prerequisite to an appeal under section 117.145 from an award of damages embraced in the condemnation commissioners' report.

2. A condemning authority complies with Minn.Stat. § 117.145 by serving a copy of the notice of appeal from a condemnation award on a party's attorney, rather than directly on the party.

3. A property owner also complies with the notice requirements of Minn.Stat. § 117.145 by serving a copy of the notice of appeal from a condemnation award on counsel for the condemning authority, rather than directly upon the authority.

Eric J. Magnuson, Rider, Bennett, Egan & Arundel, LLP, John M. LeFevre, Jr., Corrine H. Thomson, Karen R. Cole, Kenney & Graven, Chartered, Minneapolis, for appellant.

William S. Rosen, Daniel N. Rosen, Rosen & Rosen, P.L.L.P., St. Paul, for respondents Daniel Adelmann, Trustee, et al.

Dale Happe, Burnsville, for respondent F&D Properties.

Marvin Liszt, Richard I. Diamond, Diamond, Liszt & Grady, P.A., Minneapolis, for respondent Naegele.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

LANCASTER, Justice.

The central issues presented by this consolidated appeal are (1) whether compliance with the notice of filing requirements of Minn.Stat. § 117.115, subd. 2 (1998) is a jurisdictional prerequisite to an appeal from a condemnation commissioners' award; and (2) whether a condemning authority complies with Minn.Stat. § 117.145 (1998) by serving notice of appeal from a condemnation commissioners' award on a party's attorney but not directly on the party as well. The court of appeals affirmed the district court's dismissal of a condemning authority's appeals from condemnation awards, holding the district court lacked jurisdiction over those appeals because the condemning authority sent notice of the filing of the awards, and copies of the notices of appeal from those awards, to the respondent property owners' counsel, rather than both to respondents and their counsel. We reverse on these issues.

Appellant, The Housing and Redevelopment Authority in and for the City of Richfield (HRA), filed a petition with Hennepin County District Court in March 1995, seeking to acquire 27 parcels of land in the Interstate/Lyndale/Nicollet area of the city by exercising its power of eminent domain. The district court filed an order in July 1995, approving the HRA's request and appointing three commissioners to ascertain and report the damages that would be awarded to the displaced property owners. The condemnation commissioners filed their awards for the parcels relevant to this appeal between June and September of 1996. After each award was filed, the HRA mailed notice of the filing of the commissioners' award to counsel for the respondent property interest holders and to the other parties named in the proceedings. Those interest holders not represented by counsel were directly sent a notice of filing of the condemnation award.

Pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 117.145, appellant HRA subsequently filed notices of appeal from those condemnation awards with the district court, seeking review of the amounts awarded to the property interest holders. The HRA served by mail copies of the notice of appeal upon respondents' counsel and all other parties or their counsel who had appeared in the proceeding. The HRA did not serve respondents directly if counsel represented them.

Respondent owners of parcels 1-3, 9-19, and 21 ¹ moved to dismiss the HRA's appeals for lack of jurisdiction; the owners of parcel 20 also moved for dismissal in a similar motion. By orders dated May 1 and June 3, 1997, respectively, the district court granted both motions. The district court reasoned that compliance with section 117.145 was a jurisdictional prerequisite to the appeal and that section 117.145 incorporated the notice requirements of section 117.115. Therefore, failure to comply with section 117.115 constituted a failure to comply with section 117.145, depriving the court of jurisdiction. The district court also concluded, without addressing whether the section 117.145 requirements are waivable, that respondent property owners did not waive their objections to jurisdiction by filing responsive appeals and otherwise participating in the appeals process. In a consolidated appeal, the court of appeals, for similar reasons, affirmed the dismissal of the HRA's appeals for lack of jurisdiction and the denial of the HRA's motion to dismiss respondents' cross-appeals. Housing Redev. Auth. v. Adelmann, Nos. C2-97-980, C7-97-1199, 1998 WL 15902 (Minn.App. Jan.20, 1998).

This consolidated appeal involves the interpretation of the notice and appeal provisions of Minn.Stat. §§ 117.115 and 117.145 (1996). Questions of statutory interpretation are reviewed de novo on appeal. See Bedow v. Watkins, 552 N.W.2d 543, 546 (Minn.1996).

At the outset, we note that there is no suggestion that any party was deprived of notice either of the filing of the commissioners' award or of the notice of appeal. Rather, the dispute concerns whether failure to directly serve first the notices of filing of the commissioners' awards, and then the notices of appeal, on respondents as well as their counsel, creates a jurisdictional defect that deprives the district court of appellate jurisdiction.

I.

We first consider whether compliance with the requirements of Minn.Stat. § 117.115, subd. 2 for notice of filing of the commissioners' awards is a jurisdictional prerequisite to an appeal from the awards. We have previously stated that "unless the conditions prescribed by statute are observed, the court acquires no jurisdiction" over an appeal from a condemnation award. State v. Goins, 286 Minn. 54, 57, 174 N.W.2d 231, 233 (1970) (citing State v. Radosevich, 249 Minn. 268, 82 N.W.2d 70 (1957)). All parties agree, as they must, that section 117.145 prescribes the steps necessary to perfect an appeal from a condemnation commissioners' award. The crux of this first issue is whether the notice of filing requirement in section 117.115 is an additional procedural prerequisite to an appeal.

Subdivision 2 of section 117.115, which addresses a petitioner's responsibility to send notice of the filing of a condemnation commissioners' award, provides:

Within ten days after the date of the filing of the report of commissioners, the petitioner shall notify the following listed persons, by mail, of the filing of the report of commissioners setting forth the date of filing of the report, the amount of the award, and all the terms and conditions thereof as the same pertain to the respondent or party listed:

(1) each respondent listed in the petition as having an interest in any parcel described in the report ;

(2) each other party to the proceeding whose appearance has been noted by the court in its order approving the petition under section 117.075; and

(3) each respondent's attorney.

Minn.Stat. § 117.115, subd. 2 (1998) (emphasis added). The plain language specifies that notice of filing of the condemnation award must be sent both to each respondent and each respondent's attorney. There is no dispute that the HRA failed to fully comply with this requirement because it mailed the notice to respondents' counsel but not directly to respondents.

Nothing in the text of section 117.115 states that condemning authorities must strictly comply with the notice of filing requirements before a district court may acquire jurisdiction over an appeal from a condemnation award. Indeed, section 117.115 itself does not mention appeals or specify the effect of a failure to notify all respondents of the filing of a condemnation award.

The lower courts determined that the language of section 117.145, which provides for appeals from condemnation awards, incorporates the section 117.115 notice of filing requirement as a separate jurisdictional prerequisite to the filing of an appeal. Section 117.145 states:

At any time within 40 days from the date that the report has been filed, any party to the proceedings may appeal to the district court from any award of damages embraced in the report, or from any omission to award damages, by: (1) filing with the court administrator a notice of such appeal, and (2) serving by mail a copy of such notice on all respondents and all other parties to the proceedings having an interest in any parcel described in the appeal who are shown in the petitioner's affidavit of mailing, required by section 117.115, subdivision 2, as having been mailed a notice of the report of the commissioners.

Minn.Stat. § 117.145 (1998) (emphasis added).

The court of appeals concluded that the reference in section 117.145 to the section 117.115, subdivision 2, notice requirement has the effect of incorporating that requirement as a jurisdictional prerequisite to an appeal, with the result being that failure of the HRA to serve both respondents and their counsel with notice of filing deprives the district court of jurisdiction over the HRA's subsequent appeals. Adelmann, 1998 WL 15902, at * 3. The court of appeals based this conclusion on its earlier decision in Condemnation by Housing & Redev. Auth. v. Suh, 553 N.W.2d 115 (Minn.App.1996), pet. for rev. denied (Minn.,...