Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. One Parcel of Land in Montgomery County, Md.

• Decision Date: 04 May 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-1166,82-1166
• Citation: 706 F.2d 1312
• Parties: WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY, a body corporate, Appellee, v. ONE PARCEL OF LAND In MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND, et al., and Unknown Owners, (parcel MA 408) and F.O. Day Company, Defendants, and Virginia Casey Visnich, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1312

706 F.2d 1312

WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY, a body

corporate, Appellee, v. ONE PARCEL OF LAND In MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND, et al., and Unknown Owners, (parcel MA 408) and F.O. Day

Company, Defendants,

and

Virginia Casey Visnich, Appellant.

No. 82-1166.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 8, 1983.

Decided May 4, 1983.

John R. Clapp, Rockville, Md. (R. Edwin Brown, Brown & Sturm, Rockville, Md., on brief) and Warren Browning, for appellant.

J. Carol Williams, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Carol E. Dinkins, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raymond N. Zagone, Robert L. Klarquist, Robert H. Plotkin, Washington, D.C., on brief), for appellee.

Before WINTER, Chief Judge, WIDENER, Circuit Judge, and BRYAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

HARRISON L. WINTER, Chief Judge:

Virginia Casey Visnich appeals from the judgment of the district court ruling that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority ("WMATA") acted properly in condemning her property under the Declaration of Taking Act, 40 U.S.C. Sec. 258a, and setting an award of interest on the amount of just compensation. We conclude that WMATA properly exercised condemnation powers delegated to it by the federal government, and that the district court acted within its discretion in fixing the rate of interest on the award. We therefore affirm the judgment.

I.

In order to provide for the development of a coordinated mass transit system in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, at the urging of Congress, ¹ negotiated the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Compact ("Compact"). ² The Compact was enacted into state law by Maryland, see Ch. 869, Acts of General Assembly 1965, and Virginia, see Ch. 2, 1966 Acts of Assembly. Congress then enacted the compact for the District of Columbia. See Pub.L. No. 89-774, 80 Stat. 1324 (1966), reprinted at [1966] U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 1547-79. ³ That enactment also constituted congressional consent to the Compact, pursuant to the Compact Clause of the United States Constitution, which provides that "[n]o State shall, without the Consent of Congress, ... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State ...." U.S. Const. art. I, Sec. 10, cl. 3.

Section 4 of the Compact created WMATA as an instrumentality and agency of each of the signatory parties--the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. Its Board of Directors is composed of two representatives from each of the signatories. As set forth in the Compact, WMATA's purposes are "to plan, develop, finance, and cause to be operated improved transit facilities, in coordination with transportation and general development planning for the [metropolitan] Zone, as part of a balanced regional system of transportation." In carrying out those purposes, WMATA has, among others, the power to sue and be sued and to acquire, own, and convey real and personal property necessary or useful in rendering transit service. Although most of its funds are supposed to come from operating revenues, WMATA is empowered to issue revenue bonds, borrow money from lending institutions, and mortgage or pledge its properties and revenues; remaining funding may be provided by the states, District, and federal government. WMATA is not permitted however, to acquire any property, make any commitments, or incur any obligations unless funds are presently available to cover such expenses.

Of particular relevance to the present case, the Compact also establishes and defines the Authority's powers of property condemnation. Section 82 of the Compact provides:

(a) The Authority shall have the power to acquire by condemnation ... any real or personal property ....

(b) Proceedings for the condemnation of property in the District of Columbia shall be instituted and maintained under the Act of December 23, 1963 (77 Stat. 577-581, D.C.Code 1961, Supp. IV, Sections 1351-1368). Proceedings for the condemnation of property located elsewhere within the Zone shall be instituted and maintained, if applicable, pursuant to the provisions of the Act of August 1, 1888, as amended (25 Stat. 357, 40 U.S.C. 257) and the Act of June 25, 1948 (62 Stat. 935 and 937, 28 U.S.C. 1358 and 1403) or any other applicable Act; provided, however, that if there is no applicable Federal law, condemnation proceedings shall be in accordance with the provisions of the State law of the signatory in which the property is located governing condemnation by the highway agency of such state....

(c) Any award or compensation for the taking of property pursuant to this Title shall be paid by the Authority, and none of the signatory parties nor any other agency, instrumentality or political subdivision thereof shall be liable for such award or compensation.

II.

On May 12, 1978, WMATA filed a complaint and declaration of taking in the district court, condemning certain property, located in Montgomery County, Maryland, owned by appellant Virginia Casey Visnich. WMATA purported to proceed under the "quick-take" condemnation procedures specified by 40 U.S.C. Sec. 258a, the Declaration of Taking Act. ⁴ Pursuant to those procedures, WMATA deposited into the registry of the court its estimate of the property's value, $1,710,400, and took immediate title to, and possession of, the property. ⁵

On March 19, 1979, the owner filed a motion to vacate the declaration of taking and for return of the property, arguing that WMATA did not have the authority to quick-take property under Sec. 258a, but instead could take title to and possession of the property only after payment of judicially-determined just compensation. The magistrate denied this motion, and his denial was affirmed by the district court, 490 F.Supp. 1328. The case was then referred to a Land Commission, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 71A, in order to fix an award of just compensation. In its report of May 29, 1981, the Commission recommended that Visnich be awarded $4,997,203 as just compensation for the value of her property at the time it had been taken. This recommendation was adopted by the district court, leaving a shortfall of $3,286,803 between the amount that WMATA had deposited into court at the time of the taking and the amount awarded by the district court. Visnich petitioned the district court for an award of interest on this amount in excess of the nominal six percent annual rate established by Sec. 258a. The magistrate fixed the interest rate at 8.73% for 1978, 9.63% for 1979, 11.94% for 1980, and 14.02% for 1981; this too was affirmed by the district court, and final judgment was entered.

On appeal before us, Visnich argues, first, that WMATA did not have the authority to quick-take her property under Sec. 258a, and, second, that the interest rate set by the district court was insufficient to provide just compensation.

III.

We turn first to the propriety of WMATA's use of quick-take condemnation procedures. Not being a sovereign, WMATA of course has no inherent condemnation powers of its own. ⁶ It is also clear, however, that the federal or state governments may delegate their condemnation power to lesser agencies such as WMATA. ⁷ The landowner's argument, therefore, is that any delegation of condemnation powers to WMATA was limited to normal (i.e., taking title and possession only after payment of the judicially-determined amount) condemnation, and did not include quick-take powers.

The parties seem to agree that quick-take condemnation power could not have been granted by Maryland, because the Maryland state constitution provides that:

The General Assembly shall enact no Law authorizing private property, to be taken for public use, without just compensation, as agreed upon between the parties, or awarded by a Jury, being paid first or tendered to the party entitled to such compensation.

Md. Const. art. III, Sec. 40. Although article III, section 40B of the Maryland Constitution permits the State Roads Commission to use quick-take powers, such use is limited to condemnation "for highway purposes."

The magistrate and district court concluded, however, that WMATA had been delegated quick-take condemnation powers by the federal government. They reasoned that congressional consent to the WMATA Compact, pursuant to the Compact Clause, had transformed the Compact into substantive federal law that delegated federal quick-take powers to WMATA. In reviewing this judgment, we must consider: first, did the Compact become a federal law; second, if so, was it intended by Congress to delegate affirmative federal powers and was it a proper legislative device to accomplish that purpose; and third, if so, were those powers intended by Congress to include quick-take condemnation powers and were they delegated in a way that constitutionally reached that result?

A.

The first question is whether congressional consent pursuant to the Compact Clause created federal law, which of course would be a prerequisite to the delegation of federal power, or instead simply consented to a joining of state power. Resolution of this question is guided, we think, by the Supreme Court's recent decision in Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U.S. 433, 101 S.Ct. 703, 66 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981), announced after the decision of the district court. In Cuyler, a Pennsylvania state court had interpreted the Interstate Agreement on Detainers, an interstate compact consented to by Congress, as providing no right to a pretransfer hearing. The question presented to the Supreme Court was whether federal courts were bound by that interpretation because the state court had interpreted state law, or whether they could give their own interpretations because congressional consent to the Agreement had transformed it into federal law. The Court held that the test for whether an interstate compact becomes federal law is whether it "is a congressionally sanctioned interstate compact within Art. I, Sec. 10, of the Constitution." Id. at 439, 101 S.Ct....