Here’s a short one for your just compensation files. In County of Dakota v. Cameron, No. 19HA-CV-09-3756 (Mar. 26, 2012), the Minnesota Court of Appeals held that Minnesota’s “minimum compensation” statute, “is ambiguous and that statutory intepretation is appropriate.” Slip op. at 7. The statute provides:
When an owner must relocate, the amount of damages payable, at a minimum, must be sufficient for an owner to purchase a comparable property in the community and not less than the condemning authority’s payment or deposit under section 117.042, to the extent that the damages will not be duplicated in the compensation otherwise awarded to the owner of the property. For the purposes of this section, “owner” is defined as the person or entity that holds fee title to the property.
The court defined “comparable property” according “to its common usage,” meaning something “similar or equivalent.” It rejected the property owner’s argument that it means a specific existing property available for purchase that would allow continuation of his business. There’s more in the opinion, but we thought that was the most interesting part. Read the rest if you’d like more.