Utah Dep't of Transp. v. Target Corp.
Decision Date | 28 February 2020 |
Docket Number | No. 20180283,20180283 |
Citation | 459 P.3d 1017 |
Parties | UTAH DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Petitioner, v. TARGET CORPORATION and Weingarten/Miller/American Fork, LLC, Respondents. |
Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Sean D. Reyes, Att’y Gen., Barbara H. Ochoa, William H. Christensen, Asst. Att’y Gens., Salt Lake City, for petitioner
Troy L. Booher, J. Frederic Voros, Jr., Dick J. Baldwin, Kevin E. Anderson, Robert E. Wilkinson, Salt Lake City, for respondent Target Corporation
Jeffrey W. Appel, Matthew N. Evans, Aaron C. Hinton, Salt Lake City, for respondent Weingarten/Miller/American Fork, LLC
¶1 Target Corporation and Weingarten/Miller/American Fork, LLC (Miller) (collectively, claimants) owned property in American Fork that could be seen from both I-15 and Main Street. The property had a convenient "right-out" exit (an exit with a right-turn only) that provided access to northbound I-15. A portion of the claimants’ property was condemned by the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) for two highway construction projects in 2009. The UDOT projects involved the reconstruction of the freeway interchange near the claimants’ property. UDOT condemned a small portion of the property owned by Target and Miller. A sliver of the new interchange was built on the taken property. And the interchange interfered with both the property’s visibility and the right-out exit.
¶2 At trial the jury awarded the claimants $2.3 million in severance damages. UDOT challenged the severance damages award on appeal on two grounds. First, it asserted that the claimants had failed to present sufficient evidence of causation and damages to support the award—contending, in particular, that the claimants had failed to establish that their severance damages stemmed from the portion of the interchange situated on the claimants’ property condemned by UDOT, or to show that the portion of the interchange that rested on their former property was "essential" to UDOT’s "project as a whole" under Ivers v. Utah Dep’t of Transp. , 2007 UT 19, ¶ 21, 154 P.3d 802, overruled in part on other grounds by Utah Dep’t of Transp. v. Admiral Beverage Corp. , 2011 UT 62, 275 P.3d 208. Second, UDOT challenged the severance award on the ground that it encompassed damages stemming from UDOT’s construction of sound walls along the freeway, which in UDOT’s view were not part of the interchange.
¶3 The court of appeals upheld the jury verdict. It rejected UDOT’s first argument on the ground that a claimant whose property is taken even in part for the construction of a view-impairing structure is entitled to a presumption of causation—that the severance damages were caused by the structure so long as the visibility impairment "stem[s] from a ‘structure’ that is built upon the part of the property that was taken." Utah Dep’t of Transp. v. Target Corp. , 2018 UT App 24, ¶ 20, 414 P.3d 1080. The court of appeals deemed the new interchange to be the relevant "structure" for purposes of this analysis. Id. ¶ 34. And because the interchange rested partially on the claimants’ severed property, the court of appeals held that the claimants had no burden to show that their severance damages stemmed from the portion of the interchange on their condemned property or to demonstrate that the taken property was essential to the overall project. Id. ¶ 42. The court of appeals also rejected UDOT’s second argument. It deemed the sound-wall issue to be inadequately briefed, concluding that it could not tell from the briefs "exactly which ‘sound walls’ UDOT is referring to or where they are located." Id. ¶ 36 n.10.
¶4 We granted certiorari to consider important, unresolved questions under our case law. We affirm the decision of the court of appeals and uphold the jury verdict, but do so on grounds that differ somewhat from those adopted by the court of appeals. We tether our clarified standard to the text of the operative statute, which provides for severance damages caused by the construction of an "improvement in the manner proposed" by a condemning authority. UTAH CODE § 78B-6-511(1)(b). And we explain that the term "improvement," as originally understood and read in the context of the governing statute, encompasses any portions of an amelioration of land that advances the "purpose" for which the condemning authority takes the land at the time of the proposed improvement. Applying that standard (as explained further below), we hold that the jury’s award of severance damages was appropriate because the claimants put on adequate evidence that their damages were caused by UDOT’s construction of an improvement in the form of the new interchange. And we explain how this standard comports with our prior case law in this area. We also affirm the court of appeals’ conclusion that the sound-wall issue was inadequately briefed, albeit again on grounds that depart somewhat from those identified by the court of appeals.
¶5 In 2009 UDOT condemned two small portions of the claimants’ land in fee simple. It also took a perpetual slope easement on the claimants’ property. The condemnation actions were initiated in connection with two major UDOT projects in Utah Valley. The first project involved widening I-15 from Santaquin to the Salt Lake County line. The second project involved the construction of a new road from American Fork to Saratoga Springs. The two projects intersected near the claimants’ property at the Main Street Interchange in American Fork—the point where Main Street in American Fork intersects with I-15 and motorists can either enter the freeway or cross over I-15 via an overpass.
¶6 Because the projects required widening both Main Street and I-15, UDOT decided to replace the then-existing interchange with a larger interchange that employed an innovative diverging-diamond design. That new design required UDOT to increase the height of the overpass across I-15 and increase both the height and overall size of the on- and off-ramps.
¶7 UDOT’s construction of the new interchange necessitated the condemnation of various properties, including relatively small portions of the claimants’ property—property on which claimants have built a Target store and surrounding stores in a shopping mall located to the northeast of the interchange.1 Specifically, UDOT acquired both a 756 square-foot and a 928 square-foot parcel in fee simple and an 8,825 square-foot perpetual slope easement from the claimants. UDOT used the slope easement to pile up a large amount of dirt to create a berm to support the raised northbound on-ramp. The vast majority of the interchange was built on property already owned by UDOT or taken from others.
¶8 UDOT’s construction activities decreased the market value of the claimants’ remaining property in two main ways. First, the project limited claimants’ convenient access to the freeway. Prior to the construction of the new interchange, the claimants’ property had enjoyed a direct "right-out" exit onto Main Street. That exit allowed drivers leaving the mall’s parking lot to turn right onto Main Street and then easily merge onto northbound I-15 after driving a short distance westbound on Main Street. But because UDOT’s new interchange required the elevation of Main Street leading up to the interchange, the right-out exit was no longer safe or feasible. And the loss of the most heavily trafficked exit from the mall meant that drivers had to use a different exit located to the east of the property.
¶9 Second, the increased height of the interchange and the on- and off-ramps interfered with the ability of passersby to view the claimants’ property. Prior to UDOT’s projects, drivers moving in either direction on Main Street or I-15 could easily see the mall. Afterwards, parts of the interchange obstructed motorists’ view.
¶10 In the district court, the claimants sought recovery for both the physical takings as well as severance damages for the decrease in market value, including diminution resulting from decreased access and visibility. They presented expert testimony from an appraiser who had valued claimants’ property both before and after UDOT’s construction activities. The appraiser testified that the remaining property’s market value had decreased by more than $2.3 million. According to the appraiser, the main factors contributing to the decrease in market value were the loss of visibility and the right-out exit.
¶11 After the claimants rested, UDOT moved for partial directed verdict on the severance damages issue. It argued that the claimants had failed to show that severance damages were warranted under Ivers v. Utah Dep’t of Transp. , 2007 UT 19, 154 P.3d 802, overruled in part on other grounds by Utah Dep’t of Transp. v. Admiral Beverage Corp. , 2011 UT 62, 275 P.3d 208, because the claimants hadn’t produced evidence that the taken property was "essential" to the project as a whole. The district court denied the motion, ruling that there was enough evidence to support a finding of essentialness.
¶12 The severance damages issue thus went to the jury with instructions that "[t]he measure of severance damages is the difference between the fair market value of the remaining property before the taking and the fair market value of the remaining property after the taking." The jury was also instructed that it could award severance damages either for (1) "any loss of fair market value to the remaining property caused by the taking and/or by the construction of the highway projects on the property taken" or (2) "damages caused by an improvement that is built on property other than that which was taken if the use of the property taken was essential to the completion of one or the other of the highway projects as a whole."
¶13 The jury found that the...
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... ... " Id. (quoting Salt Lake City Corp. v. Jordan River Restoration Network , 2012 UT 84, 47, 299 P.3d 990 ) ... See, e.g. , Utah Dep't of Transp. v. Target Corp. , 2020 UT 10, 18, 459 P.3d 1017 ; State v. Lujan , ... Dept of Justice 1, 10 (2016), ... ...
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SUPPLEMENTING SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEFING.
...and postponing the argument accordingly). 236. Compare Supplemental Briefing Order (Jan. 7, 2019), Utah Dep't of Transp. v. Target Corp., 459 P.3d 1017 (Utah 2020) (asking whether "any of the standards set forth in our cases [should] be refined or reformulated in any way"), with id. (asking......