The Spokane Airport Board could have saved itself a lot of grief and expense, it seems to us, if it had been less heavy-handed in the way it ultimately went about relocating Spokane Airways, a longtime fixed-base operator at Spokane International Airport.
Now, due to a lack of good problem-solving communication between the parties, it’s quite possible the Airport Board will have to pay out a sizable sum equal to what it perhaps should have paid in the first place, plus some additional accrued damages and legal expenses. Regardless, this dispute has been going on long enough and needs to be brought to a close.
The board, which operates SIA, the Airport Business Park, and the Felts Field municipal airport, is reviewing claims Spokane Airways has filed with it seeking $4 million to $8 million in damages, plus about $500,000 in attorney’s fees and related costs, for unlawful condemnation of leased buildings the company formerly had occupied at the airport.
Spokane Airways also filed claims with the city of Spokane and Spokane County, which jointly own the airports, but they both have “tendered” their claims back to the Airport Board to indemnify. The Airport Board has hired outside legal counsel to help it review the matter before it decides on a course of action. We hope its decision doesn’t involve yet another round of messy litigation, because the board already has taken some nasty licks in court.
Spokane Airways’ filing of the claims followed a decision by the Washington Supreme Court not to review a lower-court ruling that the condemnation of the buildings the company had occupied at SIA was improper. A state appellate court panel ruled last year that Spokane Airports, the joint name used for the facilities the Airport Board oversees, lacked legal authority to use eminent domain against Spokane Airways.
The panel held that state statute prohibits the city and county from delegating powers of eminent domain to an entity such as Spokane Airports, and requires them instead to file condemnation petitions in their own names.
Underlying that technical finding, though, remains the question of why the Airport Board didn’t, or couldn’t, do more to avoid the litigation, such as by relocating the buildings Spokane Airways had been occupying or constructing comparable new quarters for the company as it contended its contract stipulated, without requiring Spokane Airways to take an additional financial hit. That breach of contract dispute, separated in court from the eminent domain matter, remains unresolved. Spokane Airways did agree to move, and was involved in the design of a proposed new building, but it and the Airport Board then couldn’t agree on lease terms.
The Airport Board has argued that it met its contractual obligations, but Spokane Airways—a longtime lessee at the airport—vehemently disagreed, and that impasse led to Spokane Airports’ ill-advised filing of a condemnation petition through which it sought to acquire the company’s leases via eminent domain.
Spokane Airways moved into smaller quarters at the airport three years ago, and a number of the buildings it formerly occupied were demolished. The Federal Aviation Administration required the buildings to be removed to provide adequate lines of sight from a new $26 million air traffic control tower built along Electric Avenue, which is what led to the current dispute.
RMA Inc., doing business as Spokane Airways, sued Spokane International Airport and the Spokane Airport Board for breach of contract and inverse condemnation in April 2007, claiming their actions had destroyed its ability to continue as a full-service fixed-base operator.
With the three-year anniversary of the case now approaching, here’s hoping that a quick disposition of Spokane Airways’ claims will put this unnecessarily litigious matter to rest once and for all.
Special Publications 
