“The Irrigation District will disavow any knowledge of your actions…”
In Hamann v. Heart Mountain Irrigation District, No. S-24-0234 (July 11, 2025), the Wyoming Supreme Court unanimously held that a state agency cannot avoid its obligation to provide just compensation when its employee causes a taking or damaging of private property, merely because the employee was not acting under an express instruction to take or damage property.
In short, an agency can’t simply disavow actions of its employees that take take or damage property (or in this case, physically injure the owner).
This is one of ours, so we are not going into great detail, but here is the short story.
A county road runs along the northern boundary of Hamann’s ranch. The Irrigation District operates and maintains a canal adjacent to the road and has used the northern road for access for decades. But the District also claims an unrecorded easement along the south side of the canal where it wants to construct another access road. Hamann denies the existence of the easement and this dispute remains unresolved.
What gave rise to this case is an incident in June 2018. The District needed access to move a concrete water bowl. Hamann was ok with this. But when the District showed up, its employee announced he was there not just to move the bowl, but to get access to the south side of the canal. Believing this was beyond the scope of the access he had authorized and intruded on his private property, Hamann called the sheriff. Meanwhile the District employee began removing portions of a driveway archway and a fence with an excavator, and Hamann got in the way. The employee driving an excavator hit him with the excavator bucket, cracking a neck bone.
Hamann sued in state court for, inter alia, inverse condemnation. But the trial court granted the District summary judgment because it had not authorized the employee to invade Hamann’s property, remove and damage his land, and physically injure him. The only way to have authorized this was for the District to hold a public meeting and authorize to do so by a Board decision.
The Wyoming Supreme Court reversed. No, the government agency here didn’t need to have expressly authorized its employee to invade and damage the property or hurt Hamann:
HMID’s narrow stance on liability is notably inconsistent with the very purpose of the inverse condemnation statute: to provide a means for landowners to seek compensation when the government forgoes formal action. See Bush Land Dev. Co., 2017 WY 12, ¶ 11, 388 P.3d at 540 (“Inverse condemnation is distinct from eminent domain. . . . [It] is a cause of action a landowner may pursue to recover just compensation for a taking of his or her property when condemnation proceedings have not been instituted.”) (emphasis added) (quoting Conner v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, Natrona Cnty., 2002 WY 148, ¶ 30 n.10, 54 P.3d 1274, 1285 n.10 (Wyo. 2022)); see also 27 Am. Jur. 2d Eminent Domain § 684 (May 2025 Update) (“[Inverse condemnation] is available where private property has been taken in fact for public use, although not through formal eminent domain procedures; and it appears that the taker does not have the intention, willingness, or ability to bring such proceedings.”) (footnotes omitted).
[¶16] We have previously observed that “[i]nverse condemnation which is generally a physical taking in fact, as opposed to a taking by formal procedure, can involve situations where the government or those acting under government auspicies [sic] physically occupy all or part of a private estate in land.” Cheyenne Airport Bd. v. Rogers, 707 P.2d 717, 729 (Wyo. 1985) (emphasis added). As a practical matter, a governmental entity “can act only through its agents[.]” Wyoming v. United States, 279 F.3d 1214, 1225 (10th Cir. 2002) (quoting Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Com. Corp., 337 U.S. 682, 687-88, 69 S.Ct. 1457, 1460, 93 L.Ed. 1628 (1949)). The unintended consequences of those agents’ conduct may create inverse condemnation liability. See Cheyenne Airport Bd., 707 P.2d at 729[.]
Slip op. at 6.
Whether the employee was authorized “is typically fact-specific.” Slip op. at 7. “After reviewing the entire record, we conclude there is a genuine issue of material fact as to whether [the employee]’s conduct was ‘an intended or foreseeable result of authorized government action.'” Slip op. at 9 (citation omitted).
Check it out.
Hamann v. Heart Mountain Irrigation District, No. S-24-0234 (Wyo. July 11, 2025)