The Morris Family LLC v. South Dakota DOT, No. 26831 (Dec. 23, 2014), the latest from the South Dakota Supreme Court, is more focused on due process and civil procedure than on eminent domain, but since the background of the case involves a 1970 condemnation judgment, and a present claim for inverse condemnation claim, we're all ears.
In 1970, SDDOT condemned part of what is now the Morris property for highway widening. The taking required moving the property's driveway. The case was eventually settled and the court entered judgment. The judgment noted the state was granted "the right to control access to the right of way[.]" Slip op. at 10.
Flash forward to the present, and "Morris Family asserts that it alleged two distinct causes of action—one claiming it was the victim of inverse condemnation and the other claiming that the State and the City of Watertown conspired to deprive Morris Family of its property rights by denying it due process." Slip op. at 7.
The inverse claim was that the 1970's judgment only took commercial access, and the state's present day activities interfered with residential access, which the Morris Family had enjoyed uninterrupted. The court rejected the argument, concluding that the 1970 judgment covered all access, not just commercial access.
The court also rejected the due process claim that the family could not access the highway at all, which "amounted to a violation of due process." Id. at 13. The court held that there's no legitimate claim of entitlement to highway access:
Unlike the cases cited by Morris Family to support this argument,5 Morris Family does not have a “legitimate claim of entitlement” to highway access in this case. As noted above, Morris Family must show that it was deprived of a protected property or liberty interest without due process. Daily v. City of Sioux Falls, 2011 S.D. 48, ¶ 14, 802 N.W.2d 905, 911. However, the United States Supreme Court has “never held that applicants for benefits, as distinct from those already receiving them, have a legitimate claim of entitlement protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment.” Lyng v. Payne, 476 U.S. 926, 942, 106 S. Ct. 2333, 2343, 90 L. Ed. 2d 921 (1986). Here, Morris Family seeks to gain back highway access, not as a matter of legitimate entitlement, but as a free benefit to its property. In essence, Morris Family would gain back for free what the State paid for in 1970.
Slip op. at 14.
The Morris Family LLC v. South Dakota Dep't of Transportation, No. 26831 (S.D. Dec. 23, 2014)
