Walker v. City of Hutchinson/Dissent Burton

by Harold Hitz Burton

United States Supreme Court

352 U.S. 112

Walker  v.  City of Hutchinson

 Argued: Oct. 15 and 16, 1956. --- Decided: Dec 10, 1956

Mr. Justice BURTON, dissenting.

If the issue in this case is the constitutionality of the statutory provision made for taking the property, its constitutionality seems clear. If, as I assume to be the case, the issue is the constitutional sufficiency of the statutory ten-day notice by publication of the hearing to assess the compensation for the land taken, I consider such a provision to be within the constitutional discretion of the lawmaking body of the State.

In weighing the 'due process' of condemnation procedure some reasonable balance must be struck between the needs of the public to acquire the property, and the opportunity for a hearing as to the compensation to be paid for the property. Just compensation is constitutionally necessary, but the length and kind of notice of the proceeding to determine such compensation is largely a matter of legislative discretion. The minimum notice required by this statute may seem to some to be inadequate or undesirably short, but it was satisfactory to the lawmakers of Kansas. It also has been upheld by the Supreme Court of Kansas and the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. To proscribe it as violative of the Federal Constitution fails to allow adequate scope to local legislative discretion. Accordingly, while not passing upon the desirability of the statutory requirement before us, I am not ready to hold that the Constitution of the United States prohibits the people of Kansas from choosing that standard. Particularly, I am not ready to throw a nationwide cloud of undertainty upon the validity of condemnation proceedings based on compliance with similar local statutes. Since 1889, it has been settled that notice by publication in condemnation proceedings to take and to fix the value to be paid for the land of a nonresident comports with due process. Huling v. Kaw Valley Ry. & Imp. Co., 130 U.S. 559, 9 S.Ct. 603, 32 L.Ed. 1045. See also, North Laramie Land Co. v. Hoffman, 268 U.S. 276, 283-287, 45 S.Ct. 491, 494-495, 69 L.Ed. 953; Bragg v. Weaver, 251 U.S. 57, 40 S.Ct. 62, 64 L.Ed. 135.

I agree with the court below and with the opinion of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit rendered in the comparable case of Collins v. City of Wichita, 225 F.2d 132, which came to our attention at the last term of Court and in which certiorari was denied on November 7, 1955, 350 U.S. 886, 76 S.Ct. 140. Therefore, I would affirm the judgment here.

Notes