Franciscan, under their former name St. Francis, planned a campus near Fairview Road and State Road 37 as pictured in 2010. The Indiana Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case filed by Franciscan Alliance and the owners of a nearby CVS Pharmacy against the state of Indiana for the taking of roadway they say negatively affected them.
Daily Journal File Photo
Indiana’s highest court will hear a case involving damages given to businesses negatively affected by a road closure for the Interstate 69 project in White River Township.
The Indiana Supreme Court approved transferring a case filed by Franciscan Alliance Inc. and SCP 2010-C36-018 LLC against the state of Indiana on April 4. The cases stems from proceedings started in 2019, when the state began the eminent domain process to seize 0.632 acres of land owned by Franciscan Alliance in White River Township for the I-69 Finish Line project, also leading to the closure of Fairview Road near State Road 37.
In 2020, Johnson Superior 4 Judge Marla Clark ruled the state was legally entitled to take the land, appointing three appraisers to determine the amount of compensation due. After the appraisers valued the amount of damages to Franciscan at nearly $2 million, the state filed exceptions to the report and demanded a jury trial, according to court documents.
Franciscan argued the closure of Fairview Road “consequently altered the traffic flow” to their existing undeveloped land and an adjacent CVS Pharmacy owned by SCP. Franciscan also claimed the closure of the road “resulted in a loss of access to its property,” while an appraiser for SCP testified during a three-day jury trial in 2022 that the loss of easy access would “doom” the CVS store, according to court documents.
A Johnson Superior Court 4 jury ultimately determined Franciscan and SCP were owed money, with Franciscan awarded $680,000 and SCP awarded $1.5 million in damages. The state appealed the damage award to the Indiana Court of Appeals in December 2022, questioning whether the inconvenience associated with traffic flow was a “compensable injury.” State officials believed it was not, and asked for the appellate court to reduce the damage award to $47,400, according to court documents.
They also highlighted Indiana Supreme Court precedent, which said damages associated with “traffic flow variations are not compensable,” court documents say.
The Court of Appeals reversed the damage award in a unanimous 3-0 opinion on Nov. 28, 2023, claiming the issue was a “textbook illustration of the traffic-flow rule.” They also ruled that Franciscan still had access to State Road 37 even though construction added more travel distance to get to it, the opinion shows.
Judges also said the jury’s award reflected non-compensable damages, according to the opinion.
Both Franciscan and SCP appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in January, asking justices to reevaluate the traffic-flow rule, along with how much damage the construction did to the appellees’ businesses. The state asked the Supreme Court to deny the transfer to the court, saying Franciscan and SCP “provided no basis” to revisit the appellate decision, court documents show.
The Supreme Court ultimately granted the transfer last week. No hearings have been set yet.
A Franciscan spokesperson did not return a request for comment before the deadline, nor did a CVS spokesperson.
