United States v. 191.07 Acres of Land, and Milan Martinek

482 F.3d 1132 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. 191.07 ACRES OF LAND, Defendant, and Milan Martinek, Defendant-Appellant. No. 04-35131. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted February 9, 2006. Filed April 4, 2007. Lawrence V. Albert, Esq., Anchorage, AK, for the appellant. Kelly A. Johnson and Katherine W. Hazard, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for the appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Alaska; James K. Singleton, Chief District Judge, Presiding. D.C. Nos. CV-98-00072-JKS, CV-98-00098-JKS. Before: FARRIS, LEAVY, and RYMER, Circuit Judges. FARRIS, Circuit Judge: 1 Milan Martinek appeals the district court's award of $339,850 in compensation for the taking by the United States of his unpatented gold-mining claims in Denali National Park and Preserve. He argues that the district court erred when it determined that he was not entitled to a trial by jury of just compensation for his claims, when it selected a valuation method different from those proposed by the parties, and when it set the rate of prejudgment interest. We affirm. I. BACKGROUND 2 In 1986 Martinek was devised eleven…

Milan Martinek appeals the district court’s award of $339,850 in compensation for the taking by the United States of his unpatented gold-mining claims in Denali National Park and Preserve. He argues that the district court erred when it determined that he was not entitled to a trial by jury of just compensation for his claims, when it selected a valuation method different from those proposed by the parties, and when it set the rate of prejudgment interest. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

In 1986 Martinek was devised eleven unpatented goldmining claims comprising 191.07 acres within what is now Denali Park, Alaska. In 1980 Congress expanded Denali Park’s boundaries to encompass the eleven claims, which thereby came under the National Park Service’s surface management jurisdiction pursuant to the Mining in the Parks Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq. In 1985 the United States District Court for the District of Alaska entered an injunction against the Park Service in a separate case that halted all mining operations in Denali Park until the Park Service completed an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). See N. Ala. Envtl. Ctr. v. Hodel, 803 F.2d 466 (9th Cir.1986). The injunction was lifted in…

dissenting:

I respectfully dissent from Part II.B of the majority opinion which concludes that Martinek has no right to a jury trial of the issue of just compensation for the property interest taken by the United States through filing of the Declaration of Taking. In this case, there were two takings: one by inverse condemnation through government regulation which began on the date stipulated by the parties and ended when the government filed its Declaration of Taking; and the other by direct condemnation which occurred when the government filed its Declaration of Taking. When Martinek filed his inverse condemnation action in the district court he owned no interest in the mining claims. They had already been taken by the filing of government’s Declaration of Taking. Mar-tinek had a right to a jury trial of just compensation for the property interest taken when the United States filed its complaint and Declaration of Taking. He did not forfeit that right by bringing an inverse condemnation action asserting that, in addition to the taking which occurred when the government filed its Declaration of Taking, the government had also previously taken his mining claims through…