State by Mattson v. Prow's Motel, Inc.

• Citation: 171 N.W.2d 83,285 Minn. 1
• Decision Date: 19 September 1969
• Docket Number: No. 41453,41453
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota by Robert W. MATTSON, its Attorney General, Appellant, v. PROW'S MOTEL INC., Respondent.
• Court: Supreme Court of Minnesota (US)

Page 83

171 N.W.2d 83

285 Minn. 1

STATE of Minnesota by Robert W. MATTSON, its Attorney General, Appellant, v. PROW'S MOTEL INC., Respondent.

No. 41453.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Sept. 19, 1969.

Syllabus by the Court

In condemnation proceedings to take land for highway purposes:

1. A property owner is entitled to damages for a constitutional taking by the state of his right of reasonable, suitable, and convenient access to and from a highway.

2. Whether such a taking has occurred, the nature of the taking, and the time of the taking are questions which, in an action in the nature of mandamus to compel the state to institute condemnation proceedings, must be decided in the mandamus proceeding and not by lay commissioners appointed by the court or by a jury on appeal from the commissioners' award.

Douglas M. Head, Atty. Gen., Richard H. Hassel, Asst. Atty. Gen., Donn D. Christensen, Deputy Atty. Gen., Winston Ehlmann, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Paul, for appellant.

E. E. Ranta and A. H. Michals, Minneapolis, for respondent.

OPINION

ROGOSHESKE, Justice.

Appeal by the state from a judgment, entered pursuant to a special verdict, awarding respondent damages for the alleged taking by the state of its right of access to and from a four-lane highway and from the trial court's order denying the state's motion for a new trial.

Respondent is the owner of a motel. The approximately 4 acres of land on which the motel is situated abuts upon the east side of Trunk Highway No. 52, 500 feet north of its intersection with Second Street Northwest in Rochester. Highway No. 52 runs north and south through Rochester and is the principal highway link between Rochester and the Twin Cities. Prior to 1957, Highway No. 52 was a two-lane highway, and respondent had direct and unlimited access from its property to both the northand south-bound lanes of the highway. In 1957, the state, as part of a project to widen Highway No. 52 north of Second Street Northwest to four lanes, instituted condemnation proceedings against respondent's land which eventually resulted in a stipulation of settlement which provided that, in return for a payment of $5,000, the state acquired title to 0.07 acres of respondent's land for a dike which was part of a creek diversion project, 'together with all right of access' from the remaining lands of respondent abutting on Highway No. 52. Although the record is far from clear, either by the terms of the stipulation or otherwise respondent retained direct access to all lanes of the reconstructed four-lane divided highway by use of a crossover at Fourth Street Northwest. This east-west street adjoins respondent's property on the south and crossed all four lanes of Highway No. 52, just south of the motel.

In 1959, as the result of a large, previously unanticipated increase in the volume of traffic on Highway No. 52, the state decided, at some point in time which the record does not reveal, that it was necessary to convert Highway No. 52 into a controlled-access highway. Accordingly, the reconstruction project which originally had covered only that part of Highway No. 52 north of Second Street Northwest, was extended southward. As part of what the state calls Phase 2 of this reconstruction project, on October 30, 1962, the state closed the crossover at Fourth Street leaving respondent's property with its closest access to and from the northbound lanes of Highway No. 52 by means of a service or frontage road constructed as part of the project and leading to on and off ramps near Second Street Northwest, approximately one-half mile to the south. Respondent also was afforded access to all four lanes of the highway to the north of the motel by means of a circuitous route east along Fourth Street Northwest, north along Sixteenth Avenue Northwest, and west along Fifth Street Northwest to the cloverleaf interchange at Fifth Street and Highway No. 52.

This prompted respondent to bring an action in the nature of mandamus seeking an order compelling the state to institute condemnation proceedings against its property on the grounds that the limitation of access to Highway No. 52 was, in fact, a new and separate construction project resulting in a taking of respondent's right of reasonable, suitable, and convenient access to its property, lowering its market value by $150,000, and thereby entitling it to damages. The state contended that the entire reconstruction of Highway No. 52 was a single construction project and that the crossover at Fourth Street Northwest was purely temporary, having been constructed solely for the convenience of the respondent to give it some access to the highway until the completion of permanent on and off ramps near Second Street Northwest. The state insists that the completed reconstruction now affords respondent reasonable, suitable, and convenient access.

As in Thomsen v. State, Minn., 170 N.W.2d 575, filed September 5, 1969, the mandamus court found that the respondent 'may have sustained damages as a result of the foregoing facts, for which (it has) not received compensation' and ordered the state to commence condemnation proceedings pursuant to Minn.St. c. 117. Pursuant to that order, the state filed a petition in the district court setting forth the order of the mandamus court, and lay commissioners were appointed. They assessed damages in the amount of $25,000, and respondent and the state both appealed from the commissioners' award. Upon a trial de novo, the trial court, quite likely following dicta in Hendrickson v. State, 267 Minn. 436, 127 N.W.2d 165, in effect submitted to the jury the issue of whether there had been a 'taking' by the state of respondent's right of reasonable, suitable, and convenient access. The jury in a special verdict found respondent has been deprived of reasonably suitable and convenient access and found damages to be $46,800. The trial court denied the state's motion for a new trial, and the state appeals.

It is clear that under the law of this state a property owner is entitled to damages for a constitutional taking by the state of his right of reasonable, suitable, and convenient access to and from his property. Minn.Const. art. 1, § 13; State, by Mondale, v. Gannons...