State ex rel. Department of Transportation v. Little

• Citation: 100 P.3d 707,2004 OK 74
• Decision Date: 21 September 2004
• Docket Number: No. 96978,96978
• Parties: STATE OF OKLAHOMA ex rel. Department of Transportation, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. BILLY E. and MARTHA J. LITTLE, Husband and Wife, and the CHEROKEE COUNTY TREASURER, Defendants/Appellees.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

2004 OK 74

100 P.3d 707

STATE OF OKLAHOMA ex rel. Department of Transportation, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. BILLY E. and MARTHA J. LITTLE, Husband and Wife, and the CHEROKEE COUNTY TREASURER, Defendants/Appellees.

No. 96978

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

Decided: September 21, 2004

Barry K. Roberts, Norman, Oklahoma, attorney for Appellant.

Tim K. Baker, TIM K. BAKER AND ASSOCIATES, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, attorney for Appellees.¹

OPALA, V.C.J.

¶1 The following questions are pressed for decision on certiorari: (1) Does landowners' receipt of an administratively determined relocation assistance payment preclude them from seeking reimbursement for relocation expenses in the condemnation proceeding? and (2) Does the record establish that the jury compensated landowners for both the fair market value of certain improvements and for the cost of reestablishing the same improvements at their new business location? We answer both questions in the negative, but in the absence of a timely landowners' quest for certiorari relief we leave undisturbed the Court of Civil Appeals' disposition in favor of post-remand reduction in the amount of the judgment. Also left undisturbed is the Court of Civil Appeals' disposition of the landowners' application for an appeal-related counsel fee.

I STATEMENT OF THE FACTS

¶2 The Oklahoma Department of Transportation ("ODOT") brought this condemnation proceeding on behalf of the State of Oklahoma to acquire approximately one acre of land² located in Cherokee County for the purpose of widening State Highway 82 near Keys, Oklahoma. The land was owned by Billy E. and Martha J. Little ("landowners") and was used by them to operate a boat repair business. Although only a portion of the property would ultimately be occupied by the widened highway, ODOT determined that it was necessary to acquire the entire tract. Negotiations to purchase the property failed, and ODOT initiated this condemnation proceeding on 27 October 1998. Court-appointed commissioners assessed just compensation for the land, building, and other improvements at $199,100.00. Both parties took exception to the commissioners' report and demanded a jury trial.

¶3 After certain preliminary issues were brought to a conclusion,³ a jury trial was held on 12 and 13 March 2001. A verdict was returned assessing just compensation at $265,000.00. Judgment in that amount was entered on 27 March 2001. ODOT moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, for remittitur, or for a new trial. All of its motions were denied.

¶4 ODOT appealed, claiming that the judgment contained both unauthorized and duplicate elements of compensation. Landowners moved to dismiss the appeal on the grounds that it had been filed out of time. The Court of Civil Appeals, Division IV ("COCA"), agreed that the appeal had not been timely filed and ordered it dismissed. We granted certiorari, vacated the intermediate appellate court's opinion that dismissed the appeal, and remanded the cause to that court for disposition on the merits. The COCA then affirmed the judgment in part, reversed it in part, and remanded the proceeding to the trial court with instructions to reduce the judgment in an amount to be determined upon remand. ODOT sought and was granted certiorari. Landowners did not file a certiorari petition of their own. We now vacate the COCA's opinion except for that portion which orders a post-remand reduction in the amount of the judgment and that which grants landowners' request for an appeal-related counsel fee. In doing so, we affirm the trial court's judgment in part, reverse it in part, and remand the cause to the trial court for further proceedings to be consistent with this pronouncement.

II ODOT'S APPEAL AND THE COCA DISPOSITION

¶5 Prior to the initiation of this condemnation proceeding, landowners received approximately $13,500.00 as reimbursement of relocation expenses pursuant to the federal and state relocation assistance acts.⁴ Although landowners admitted that they received this payment, the specifics of how they came to receive the payment and the payment's amount were not part of the evidence submitted in the condemnation proceeding.⁵ We do know that landowners did not appeal the payment's amount through the administrative appeals process.

¶6 In the condemnation proceeding ODOT moved in limine to prevent landowners from introducing into evidence any proof of their moving and related expenses, arguing that the federal and state relocation assistance acts' administrative process was the exclusive means of obtaining reimbursement of such expenses. ODOT argued that landowners' failure to pursue the administrative appeals procedure available to a party who is dissatisfied with the amount of a relocation assistance payment foreclosed their access to a judicial forum to seek reimbursement of any additional relocation expenses. The trial court disagreed and allowed the jury to consider as a compensable item the amount of relocation expenses landowners incurred that had not been reimbursed by the relocation payment landowners received. The jury awarded landowners $265,000.00 in a lump sum.

¶7 ODOT appealed, again arguing that landowners' exclusive remedy for recovery of relocation expenses was through the administrative procedure set up by the federal and state relocation assistance acts and their failure to exhaust administrative remedies with respect to the relocation assistance payment they received barred them from seeking any relief in a judicial forum for moving and related expenses. ODOT argued that the lump sum judgment, which included unrecoverable relocation expenses, "exceeded the trial court's jurisdiction" and must be reversed. Landowners argued on appeal that relocation expenses are compensable in a condemnation proceeding and the trial court's reception of evidence of those expenses was appropriate.

¶8 The COCA opinion held both that relocation expenses can be recovered in a condemnation proceeding and that landowners were required to exhaust administrative remedies under the federal and state relocation acts. COCA interwove these two principles by holding that the amount of relocation expenses recoverable in the condemnation proceeding is limited to the difference between the amount of moving expenses landowners actually incurred and the maximum relocation assistance payment to which they would have been entitled had they pursued their administrative remedies to a successful conclusion. Hence the COCA remanded the case to the trial court with directions to determine the maximum amount landowners could have received if they had succeeded in an administrative appeal. COCA then instructs the trial court to reduce the judgment by any additional amount landowners could have received but did not due to their inaction. According to COCA's reduction formula, landowners' recovery must be reduced by either $6,500.00 or by $2,594.00, depending on which section of the federal relocation assistance act the trial court decides is applicable to them.

¶9 ODOT, who agrees with the exhaustion-of-administrative-remedies theory adopted by the COCA opinion, seeks certiorari not to challenge the COCA's reasoning, but to obtain corrective relief — reversal of the judgment — denied by the COCA. ODOT contends that the COCA should have reversed the judgment in its entirety for landowners' failure to exhaust administrative remedies rather than remanding the cause to the trial court for a hearing to determine a reduction in the amount of the judgment. Landowners, who stand to lose at most $6,500.00 of their $265,000.00 judgment, did not file their own certiorari petition.

III STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶10 ODOT raises two issues on certiorari. First, although ODOT agrees with the COCA's holding that landowners had to exhaust administrative remedies under the federal and state relocation assistance acts, it challenges the COCA's remand-and-reduction disposition as inconsistent with that holding because it permits landowners to recover some of their relocation expenses in the condemnation proceeding. ODOT contends that landowners are not entitled to recover any of their relocation expenses outside of the federal and state administrative relocation assistance scheme. Although neither ODOT nor landowners challenge the COCA's exhaustion holding, we nevertheless must consider its correctness in order to determine whether ODOT is entitled to the relief it seeks. We are hence called upon to analyze the interplay of the federal and state relocation assistance acts with state eminent domain law. Statutory interpretation raises a legal question which is subject to a de novo standard of review.⁶ An appellate court is endowed with plenary, independent and nondeferential authority to re-examine a trial court's legal rulings.⁷

¶11 The second issue raised by ODOT is whether the trial court erred when it permitted landowners' experts to testify as to the cost of installing certain improvements at landowners' new business location. ODOT contends that this evidentiary ruling was in error because the experts had already included the value of those very same improvements in their assessment of the fair market value of the condemned property. This error, ODOT claims, misled the jury into awarding landowners double compensation. The range of inquiry into the value of property taken or damaged in eminent domain proceedings is left largely to the discretion of the trial court, and unless that discretion is abused the trial court's ruling admitting or excluding such evidence will not be disturbed.⁸

IV UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THIS CASE, LANDOWNERS WERE ENTITLED TO RECOVER UNREIMBURSED MOVING AND RELATED EXPENSES IN THE CONDEMNATION PROCEEDING

¶12 The Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Act of 1970 (the "FURA")⁹ was enacted by the United States Congress to standardize benefits available to persons and businesses physically displaced and economically harmed...