High court sides with WisDOT in eminent domain dispute

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court held Thursday that the state Department of Transportation has at least one way to avoid having to provide additional compensation after restricting a property owner’s only means of getting to a highway: Creating an alternative access route.

The court, in a 5-1 decision, sided with WisDOT in an eminent-domain dispute dating to 2008. Justice David Prosser was the only bench member to break from the majority, and Justice Rebecca Bradley did not participate in the ruling.

The court’s decision stemmed from a dispute between WisDOT and Hoffer Properties LLC, which owns 9.9 acres of land in the town of Watertown. The property includes a barn, single-family home and a machine shed that is partially rented out as a workshop.

Hoffer’s property is bounded by Highway 19 to the north and by railroad tracks to the south. The property had two driveways leading to the the highway; one was for private use, and the other for agricultural use.

WisDOT began in 2008 to make improvements to a nearby stretch of Highway 26. That work led to the elimination of Hoffer’s access to Highway 19.

As a replacement, WisDOT, in 2009, extended a road to the western boundary of Hoffer’s property. For the nearly three quarters of an acre Hoffer had lost as a result of the improvement work, he also received $90,000 from WisDOT.

Hoffer, though, argued that it should get more. Specifically, it said he should receive some compensation for his property’s loss of access to Highway 19.

WisDOT countered by arguing that, because it provided a different way of getting to the public highway, it owed Hoffer nothing beyond what it had already received.

Hoffer wanted a jury to decide if WisDOT’s alternative route amounted to reasonable compensation. Hoffer noted that it could not make use of the new means of access without building, at its own expense, a driveway to connect the property to the road that WisDOT had extended.

The Jefferson County Circuit Court sided with WisDOT in 2012. That decision was both affirmed by the District 4 Court of Appeals in 2014 and by the state’s high court on Thursday.

In their 5-1 decision, the Supreme Court justices held that state law had given WisDOT the authority to make any changes to Highway 19 that it deemed necessary. The court cited two reasons why the agency had no obligation to give Hoffer additional compensation.

Not only, the justices ruled, had WisDOT provided an alternative means of access. The agency had also not deprived Hoffer of all beneficial use of the property.

In his dissent, Prosser wrote that he was concerned about the majority’s opinion because it deprives property owners of their statutory right to a jury trial and prevents circuit court judges from ever finding that alternative access is unreasonable.

That means, Prosser wrote, that the only time WisDOT must compensate a property owner for eliminating access to a public highway is when the alternative access it provides is so inadequate that the owner loses all or nearly all beneficial use of a property.

The result, he wrote, is that whatever WisDOT deems to be necessary cannot be found unreasonable by law.

The majority opinion, according to Prosser, makes a new law that is “ill-advised” and ignores relevant case law. Follow @erikastrebel