Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Water levels in Eagle Lake, near Vicksburg, are controlled by the Muddy Bayou Control Structure, part of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Mississippi River flood control program. Eagle Lake's predictable water levels allowed the plaintiffs to build piers, boathouses, and docks. In 2010, the Corps determined that “sand boils” threatened the stability of the nearby Mississippi River Mainline Levee, a component of the same flood-control program. Unusually wet weather in 2011 exacerbated the problem. The Corps declared an emergency, finding that the rise in nearby water levels threatened the structural integrity of the levee and “that the likelihood of breach was over 95%.” The Corps decided to flood Eagle Lake to reduce pressures along the levee. Because of that action, the levee did not breach. A breach would have resulted in widespread flooding affecting “about a million acres and possibly between four thousand to six thousand homes and businesses.” The damage to the plaintiffs’ properties would have exceeded the damage caused by raising the lake level. The plaintiffs sued, seeking compensation. The Federal Circuit reversed the Claims Court’s finding that the government was liable and award of $168,000 in compensatory damages. The relative benefits doctrine bars liability. The plaintiffs were better off as a result of the Corps’ actions. If the government had not raised the water level, the levee would almost certainly have breached, and the plaintiffs would have suffered more damage. View "Alford v. United States" on Justia Law

The Colorado State Engineer, and the Division Engineer for Water Division 3 (the “Engineers”), brought claims against Nick Meagher for injunctive relief, civil penalties, and costs, arising from Meagher’s failure to submit Form 6.1, "Water Use Data Submittal Form," as required by Rule 6.1 of the Rules Governing the Measurement of Ground Water Diversions Located in Water Division No. 3, The Rio Grande Basin (the “Measurement Rules”). Meagher appealed the water court’s orders denying his motion to dismiss the Engineers’ claims and granting the Engineers summary judgment on those claims, contending the court erred by: (1) denying his motion to dismiss because the Engineers’ claims were mooted by his ultimate submission of Form 6.1; (2) granting summary judgment for the Engineers based on an erroneous interpretation of Rule 6.1 and section 37-92-503, C.R.S. (2019), and notwithstanding the existence of genuine issues of material fact as to his culpable mental state and the amount of the civil penalties to be imposed; (3) enjoining future violations of Rule 6.1; and (4) awarding costs and fees to the Engineers. Finding no reversible error, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the water court's judgment. View "Colorado v. Meagher" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Paul Martin appealed a superior court order denying his request for declaratory and injunctive relief against defendant City of Rochester (city), ruling that the city’s technical review group (TRG) was not a public body for purposes of New Hampshire's Right-to-Know Law, and that the city’s copy fee schedule was in compliance with RSA 91-A:4, IV (Supp. 2016). On appeal, plaintiff argued that: (1) the TRG was a “public body,” as defined by RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (2013), because it was an “advisory committee,” and is therefore subject to the open-meeting requirement of RSA 91-A:2 (Supp. 2019); and (2) the city’s copy fee schedule was prohibited by RSA 91-A:4, IV, because it charged citizens requesting a copy of a public record more than the “actual cost” of making the copy. Plaintiff requested copies of certain documents from the city relating to the planning board and the TRG. The city charged a fee for making copies of city records or files: for black and white photocopies, the fee was fifty cents per page for the first ten pages and ten cents per page thereafter. After a bench trial, the court denied plaintiff’s prayers for relief. The New Hampshire Supreme Court disagreed with plaintiff's interpretation of RSA 91- A:1-a, I: plaintiff read the phrase "primary purpose" as relating only to the TRG’s role in “considering” an application, not necessarily “advising” on it. Under this reading, plaintiff contended the TRG’s primary purpose was to consider whatever “subject matter . . . the city manager has designated for consideration.” Further, the Supreme Court concurred with the superior court's finding that the City's fee for photocopying was based upon the actual cost of copying, and not the labor associated with making the copies. Accordingly, the trial court's judgment was affirmed. View "Martin v. City of Rochester" on Justia Law

The Township of Manalapan challenged the condemnation award in favor of defendants entered after a jury trial. The issue was whether the trial court erred in admitting testimony that the condemned property’s highest and best use would require a variance without first determining whether there was a reasonable probability the variance would be granted. The New Jersey Supreme Court concluded evidence that risks misleading the jury into assuming a zoning variance for purposes of calculating a property’s value must not be admitted absent a judicial finding it was reasonably probable that the variance will be obtained. Therefore, the trial court erred by allowing the jury to consider testimony that the highest and best use of the subject property would require a variance without first confirming the probability of securing that variance. View "Township of Manalapan v. Gentile" on Justia Law

Appellant, North Murrieta Community, LLC (North Murrieta), was the master developer of a large development project in the City of Murrieta (the City) called the Golden City Project. North Murrieta sought to take advantage of certain statutory land use planning tools that enabled builders to lock in place regulations, conditions, and fees municipalities could enforce against them while a project proceeds. In July 1999, North Murrieta obtained approval for a vesting tentative map on part of the Golden City Project property. In March 2001, four months before the map would expire, North Murrieta and the City entered a development agreement covering the entire Golden City Project property. The agreement extended the term of the vesting tentative map for 15 years and also locked in place regulations and fees the City could enforce against the developer on the entire project for the same period. The development agreement explicitly allowed the City to impose new fees on North Murrieta to mitigate the effects of development, provided the new fees were generally applicable and designed to address effects not fully mitigated by fees or exactions in place when the parties entered the development agreement. The City subsequently passed the Western Riverside County Transportation Uniform Mitigation Fee Program Ordinance (the TUMF ordinance), which was designed for just that purpose. In 2017, the City charged the new mitigation fees to a subsequent purchaser and developer of a subset of the affected properties. The builder made $541,497 in TUMF payments from July to October 2017, and the City transferred the bulk of those funds to respondent, Western Riverside Council of Governments (WRCOG). Both the developer and North Murrieta protested the fees. North Murrieta asked the trial court to order return of the TUMF payments and requested declarations that the City couldn’t impose the new mitigation fees under the extended vesting tentative map until it expired in 2019 and can’t impose those fees under the development agreement until it expires in 2021. The trial court held the development agreement established the parties’ rights and permitted the City to impose the new fees under the TUMF ordinance. North Murrieta appealed. The Court of Appeal affirmed, agreeing with the trial court. Though the vesting tentative map limited the fees the City could collect to those in place when the City approved the map, North Murrieta agreed to modify those rights by entering the development agreement with the City. The development agreement was a contract, which the trial court correctly enforced. View "North Murrieta Community, LLC v. City of Murrieta" on Justia Law

The Town of Monument (the “Town”) purchased a piece of property on which it planned to build a water tower. Neighboring property owners objected, arguing that the property was subject to a restrictive covenant limiting construction to single-family residences. According to the property owners, if the Town were to violate that covenant by building a water tower, the Town would be taking the restrictive covenant from each of the covenant-subject properties, and it would therefore have to compensate the property owners for the diminution in value caused by that taking. The Colorado Supreme Court answered the question of whether a restrictive covenant diminished the value of property adjacent to the government property such that the change constituted a taking. In Smith v. Clifton Sanitation District, 300 P.2d 548 (Colo. 1956), the Court held that when state or local government acquires property subject to a restrictive covenant and uses it for purposes inconsistent with that covenant, “no claim for damages arises by virtue of such a covenant as in the instant case, in favor of the owners of other property” subject to the covenant. Petitioners asked the Supreme Court to confine "Smith" to its facts or overrule it entirely. The Court declined, instead reaffirming that where a government entity has obtained property for public purposes, the government may use that land for a purpose inconsistent with a restrictive covenant without compensating all of the other landowners who are subject to that restrictive covenant. View "Forest View Co. v. Town of Monument" on Justia Law

Dr. Steven Jacobs, Casas Limited Partnership #4, LLP, and IQ Investors, LLC (collectively, “Jacobs”) contended the water court erred in: (1) granting summary judgment to the State Engineer and the Division Engineer for Water Division No. 2 (the “Engineers”) and partial summary judgment for the Park Forest Water District (“PFWD”); (2) imposing civil penalties for Jacobs’s violations of the Division Engineer’s order requiring Jacobs to cease and desist unlawfully storing state waters in two ponds on his properties; and (3) certifying its summary judgment rulings as final pursuant to C.R.C.P. 54(b). In 2012, Casas and IQ Investors acquired certain real properties, together with associated water rights and three ponds, in unincorporated El Paso County, Colorado. In order to satisfy the water needs of the properties, Jacobs negotiated with PFWD to join the properties to PFWD, and these parties formalized their arrangement in an Inclusion Agreement. Pursuant to the Inclusion Agreement, PFWD filed an application seeking to amend its augmentation plan to add Jacobs’s ponds to it. In seeking this amendment, PFWD made clear that it was not requesting new water storage rights for the ponds but rather was simply proposing to replace evaporative losses from them. The water court granted PFWD’s application and ruled that the ponds would be augmented consistent with the requirements of PFWD’s augmentation plan. Suspecting that the initial fill after reconstruction was thus not legally obtained, the commissioner requested that Jacobs provide him with the source of the initial fill and advised that if he did not receive such confirmation, then he would seek an order requiring the release of any illegally stored water. Discussion of this issue apparently went on for more than a year. In the course of such discussions, Jacobs took the position that the Inclusion Agreement covered the initial fill. PFWD, however, contended that that Agreement did not do so and that PFWD was not obligated to provide replacement water for the ponds. On December 23, 2016, having not received satisfactory proof that Jacobs’s initial fill of the ponds was lawful, the Division Engineer issued an administrative order (the “2016 Order”) to Jacobs. Jacobs did not comply with the 2016 Order by the deadline set forth therein. The Engineers thus filed a complaint in the water court for injunctive relief, penalties, and costs to enforce the 2016 Order. The Colorado Supreme Court concluded the water court properly granted both the Engineers’ summary judgment motion and PFWD’s motion for partial summary judgment, and properly imposed civil penalties. View "Jacobs v. Colorado" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court's judgment declining to declare that the City of Rapid City unlawfully bargained away its police power when it entered into a settlement agreement with Epic Outdoor Advertising under which the City agreed to amend certain sign ordinances and grant Epic two sign permits, holding that the circuit court did not err.Lamar Advertising brought this appeal. By notice of review, Epic asserted that the circuit court erred in denying its request that the court declare invalid a similar settlement agreement executed between Lamar and the City. The Supreme Court affirmed in all respects, holding (1) because the City did not contract away its police powers by agreeing to amend the sign code, and because Lamar did not establish that the City acted unreasonably or arbitrarily when it amended the sign code, the circuit court did not err in denying Lamar's motion for summary judgment requesting a declaration that the settlement agreement and the ordinance agreements were invalid; (2) challenges to the granting of permits, such as those brought by Lamar, must be pursued through the administrative process; and (3) the circuit court did not err in failing to find the settlement agreement previously entered into between Lamar and the City invalid. View "Lamar Advertising Of South Dakota, LLC v. City of Rapid City" on Justia Law

Caquelin's land was subject to a railroad easement. The Surface Transportation Board granted the railroad permission to abandon the line unless the process (16 U.S.C. 1247(d)) for considering the use of the easement for a public recreational trail was invoked. That process was invoked. The Board issued a Notice of Interim Trail Use or Abandonment (NITU), preventing effectuation of the abandonment approval and blocking the ending of the easement for 180 days, during which the railroad could try to reach an agreement with two entities that expressed interest in the easement for trail use. The NITU expired without such an agreement. The railroad completed its abandonment three months later.Caquelin sued, alleging that a taking occurred when the government, by issuing the NITU, prevented the termination of the easement during the 180-day period. Following a remand, the Claims Court again held that a taking had occurred. The Federal Circuit affirmed, rejecting the contention that the multi-factor approach adopted for government-created flooding in the Supreme Court’s 2012 “Arkansas Game” decision displaced the categorical-taking analysis adopted in Federal Circuit precedents for a NITU that blocks termination of an easement. The categorical taking analysis is applicable even when that NITU expires without a trail-use agreement. A NITU does not effect a taking if, even without a NITU, the railroad would not have abandoned its line during the period of the NITU. Here, the evidence permits a finding that abandonment would have occurred during the NITU period if the NITU had not issued. View "Caquelin v. United States" on Justia Law

Joel Kennamer appealed a circuit court's dismissal of his complaint seeking a declaratory judgment, a preliminary injunction, and a permanent injunction against the City of Guntersville, the City's mayor Leigh Dollar, each member of the Guntersville City Council, and Lakeside Investments, LLC ("Lakeside"). Kennamer's complaint sought to prevent the City from leasing certain City property to Lakeside. Kennamer asserted that the City had erected a pavilion on "Parcel One" for public use and that residents used Parcel One for public fishing, fishing tournaments, truck and tractor shows, and public festivals and events. As for Parcel Two, Kennamer alleged that in 2000, the City petitioned to condemn property belonging to CSX Transportation, Inc. ("CSX"), "for the purpose of constructing [a] public boat dock and a public recreational park." In 2019, the City approved an ordinance declaring the development property "is no longer needed for public or municipal purposes." The development agreement, as updated, again affirmed that the development property would be used "for a mixed-use lakefront development containing restaurants, entertainment, retail, office space, high density multi-family residential, and other appropriate commercial uses, including parking." Thereafter, Kennamer sued the City defendants arguing the City lacked the authority to lease to a third-party developer City property that had been dedicated for use as, and/or was being used as, a public park. Finding that the City had the statutory authority to lease the property to the third-party developer, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court's dismissal. View "Kennamer v. City of Guntersville et al." on Justia Law