Waara v. Kane

MORGAN, Justice (on reassignment).

In 1972, the Commissioner of School and Public Lands, having noted that by application of the legislatively mandated minimum bid formula 1 the school and public lands across the state were being leased for about the same amount per acre as the counties were asking the state to pay in lieu of taxes, and having determined that the formula result did not approximate the fair market value of the leases, unilaterally applied a fifty percent increase factor to the formula result for lands advertised for lease bids that year. The respondent, lessee of a tract of…