Following 3 separate condemnation actions by the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) on different parts of the plaintiff’s land, the plaintiff was successful in consolidating these into one action as they argued that the three separate actions improperly fragmented their land holdings, leaving them at risk to receive less compensation than they might have if there was a single action.  Specifically, the plaintiffs owned about 121 acres divided by a state road that was the subject of a widening by UDOT.  To accommodate the road widening, UDOT condemned about four and one-half acres from the plaintiff’s property on both sides of the road, and burdened one side of the property with temporary and permanent easements. The plaintiffs also filed an inverse condemnation action alleging violations of the taking clauses of both the U.S. and Utah constitutions.  

The Utah Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s dismissal of the inverse condemnation claims, finding that the dismissal was premature. The Supreme court determined that the condemnation action did neither functionally absorbed nor preempted the plaintiff’s constitutional claims, and that the plaintiff should be permitted to show whether independent viability of its constitutional claims exist.  Following Williamson County Reg’l Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 172 (1985), the Court noted that the plaintiff’s constitutional just compensation claim will not ripen until it has used the state procedure to challenge the direct condemnation and been denied just compensation. The Court further stated that Williamson County, however, “does not foreclose a property owner from challenging as defective either the adequacy of the condemnation process or the compensation that the process permits.”   Lastly, the Utah Supreme Court held that a constitutional cause of action is presumptively superior to, and displaces, any statutory iteration that either conflicts with it or gives it less than full effect.  So although Utha’s direct condemnation statute may provide procedural and substantive rights to property owners, the statute does not preempt a constitutional claim. 

Wintergreen Group, LC v. Utah Department of Transportation, 2007 WL 2701103  (9/18/07).  The opinion has not yet been officially published by the Utah Supreme Court.  

Thanks to Lora Lucero, Esq., AICP of Albuquerque, New Mexico for bringing this case to my attention.