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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF KANSAS No. 104,435 JAMES C. WOODS, Appellant, v. UNIFIED GOVERNMENT OF WYCO/KCK, Appellee.

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 1. Where a district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over an issue, an appellate court does not acquire jurisdiction over the matter on appeal.

2. Appellate jurisdiction is defined by statute, and an appellate court can exercise jurisdiction only under the circumstances allowed by statute.

3. An eminent domain proceeding is a special statutory proceeding that is not a civil action covered by the Kansas Code of Civil Procedure. The procedure for exercising eminent domain set forth in the Eminent Domain Procedure Act, K.S.A. 26-501 et seq., shall be followed in all such proceedings.

4. In an eminent domain proceeding, a party dissatisfied with the award of appraisers may appeal from the award by filing a written notice of appeal with the clerk of the
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district court within 30 days after the filing of the appraisers' report. The statutory time limit in which to appeal an award of appraisers is a jurisdictional requirement.

5. If an appeal of an award of appraisers is not filed within 30 days after the filing of the appraisers' report, the district court has no statutory authority to enlarge, extend, or modify that time limit, but rather the district court has no choice but to dismiss an untimely filed appeal.

6. The only issue that may be considered in an appeal of an appraisers' award pursuant to K.S.A. 2009 Supp. 26-508 is the fair market value of the property being taken. Outside issues, such as the failure of condemnor to strictly comply with the Eminent Domain Procedure Act or the failure of condemnor to afford due process to the landowner, can only be litigated in a separate civil action, such as a suit for injunction.

Appeal from Wyandotte District Court; R. WAYNE LAMPSON, judge. Opinion filed April 27, 2012. Appeal dismissed.

Timothy J. Evans, of Evans & Mullinix, P.A., of Shawnee, argued the cause and was on the brief for appellant.

Jason B. Prier, of Orrick & Associates, L.L.P., of Overland Park, argued the cause, and Patrick R. Watkins and Timothy P. Orrick, of the same firm, were with him on the brief for appellee.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

JOHNSON, J.: James C. Woods appeals the district court's dismissal of his appeal of the appraisers' award in an eminent domain action initiated by the Unified Government
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of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas (Unified Government). The district court found that Woods' notice of appeal, filed 48 days after the filing of the appraisers' report, was untimely under K.S.A. 2009 Supp. 26-508. Woods contends that Unified Government failed to comply with the notice requirements applicable to eminent domain proceedings and, therefore, the district court should have extended the 30-day statutory deadline for appealing the appraisers' award. Finding that the district court did not have the authority to extend or modify K.S.A. 2009 Supp. 26-508's jurisdictional requirement that a party's notice of appeal of an appraisers' award must be filed within 30 days of the filing of the appraisers' report, we dismiss Woods' appeal.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL OVERVIEW

In 2009, Unified Government commenced a proceeding to condemn certain real estate, including a tract owned by Woods. On December 2, 2009, the court-appointed appraisers filed their report, fixing the amount of the awards for the property affected by the eminent domain action. On December 7, Unified Government filed a document with the district court entitled "Notice of Filing of Appraisers' Report," which recited that Unified Government had informed the named defendants that the appraisers' report had been completed and that the report was filed in the office of the Clerk of the District Court of Wyandotte County. Woods now contends that he did not receive the notice that the appraisers' report had been filed.

On December 21, 2009, Unified Government paid the awards for all of the condemned real estate, and Woods acknowledges that on the following day, December 22, he received notice from Unified Government that his award had been paid into the district court. Woods did not file his notice of appeal of the appraisers' award on his condemned real estate until January 19, 2010. Unified Government responded with a motion to dismiss Woods' appeal as untimely.
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The district court heard the motion to dismiss on April 6, 2010. At that hearing, Woods' attorney simply argued that he had believed that he had 30 days from the December 22 notice of award payment in which to file his client's notice of appeal. The attorney also mentioned that he had been informed by counsel for Unified Government that "there was a certificate of mailing of this notice of the appraisers award on December 2nd or shortly after that period of time." But Woods' counsel asserted that the only notice Woods received was the December 22 notice of award payment. In response to the court's direct inquiry as to the documents that he had received, Woods stated that "[t]hey sent me other information out in regards to the meeting that was taking place and the appraisal." No attempt was made to identify the other documents to which Woods might have been referring.

Subsequently, on April 15, 2010, the district court dismissed Woods' appeal, finding that it was barred because it was filed past the statutory deadline. Woods then filed this appeal, in which he simply states the issue to be: "Did Mr. Woods timely file his appeal?" His argument revolves around a contention that Unified Government failed to mail him notice of the December 2, 2009, filing of the appraisers' report and, therefore, he is not bound by the statutory appeal period. Unified Government responds by: (1) complaining that Woods has changed his argument on appeal; (2) contending that it substantially complied with the statutory notice requirements of K.S.A. 2009 Supp. 26505; and (3) arguing that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

APPELLATE JURISDICTION

Woods' argument on appeal hinges upon his contention that Unified Government did not comply with the notice provisions of the Eminent Domain Procedures Act, K.S.A.
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26-501 et seq. (EDPA). See K.S.A. 26-516 (naming the Act). Specifically, Woods points to K.S.A. 2009 Supp. 26-505, which required Unified Government, within 3 days of receiving notice that the appraisers had filed their report with the clerk of the district court, to mail a written notice of the filing of the appraisers' report to every person who owned any interest in any of the property being taken, and then to file in the office of the clerk of the district court an affidavit showing proof of the mailing of such notice. Woods asserts that Unified Government did not mail him a notice of the filing of the appraisers' report and that Unified Government also failed to file the required affidavit with the court.

Unified Government acknowledges that it did not file an affidavit with the court. However, it asserts that the document it did file, entitled "Notice of Filing of Appraisers' Report," substantially complied with the statutory notice requirements. Further, Unified Government argues that the district court never acquired jurisdiction over the appeal because of the untimely notice of appeal. Accordingly, we begin with the jurisdiction question, because if a district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over an issue, an appellate court does not acquire jurisdiction over the matter on appeal. See State v. McCoin, 278 Kan. 465, 468, 101 P.3d 1204 (2004).

Standard of Review

The existence of appellate jurisdiction is a question of law over which an appellate court possesses unlimited review. State v. Denney, 283 Kan. 781, 787, 156 P.3d 1275 (2007).

Kansas courts only have such appellate jurisdiction as is conferred by statute, and in the absence of compliance with the statutory rules, a court has the duty to dismiss the appeal. In re Condemnation of Land v. Stranger Valley Land Co., 280 Kan. 576, 578, 123
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P.3d 731 (2005). To the extent we must engage in statutory interpretation to determine jurisdictional circumstances, this court has unlimited review. See In re D.M.-T., 292 Kan. 31, 33, 249 P.3d 418 (2011).

Analysis

"An eminent domain proceeding is a special statutory proceeding and is not a civil action covered by the code of civil procedure." Miller v. Bartle, 283 Kan. 108, Syl.

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