Special Benefits and Just Compensation: Ensuring Fair Treatment of Landowners in Partial Taking Cases

The sovereign power to take private property for public use is counterbalanced by the duty to provide just compensation. The just compensation requirement is intended to protect the individual landowner when the government exercises its right of eminent domain. Consistent with the equitable principle of fairness upon which this requirement is founded, the government must provide the individual with public funds for property transferred from his private use to the public domain. The just compensation requirement thereby distributes the costs of public projects equally among all members of society and ensures that no individual whose property is sacrificed for the public good suffers disproportionate loss. In an effort to administer the constitutional just compensation mandate, the Maine Legislature has codified the method of determining compensation for property taken in highway construction. When highway project necessitates a partial taking of land, the statute, as recently amended, allows special benefits to be set off only against the damages to the remaining property. Under this rule, the landowner will be compensated for severance damages incurred by his remaining property to the extent these damages exceed the special benefits bestowed upon the remainder. He will, however, always receive compensation for the full value of the property taken, regardless of the benefits flowing from the project. This amendment significantly modifies the previous statutory formula, which offset special benefits from both the value of the land taken and severance damages. Maine's statutory rules for determining just compensation do not, therefore, fully indemnify landowners in every case. Moreover, use of the fair market value standard for measuring the extent to which a landowner's property is benefited causes general community benefits, as well as special benefits, to be deducted from the compensation award. Consequently, the compensation formula inflicts upon the individual whose land is taken a loss that is disproportionate to the costs shared by members of the community whose properties are left intact. This Comment will analyze these deficiencies in the statutory scheme in light of Maine's newly-adopted compensation formula and will propose adjustments to the law that will provide a more fair and just compensation to landowners in partial takings.