Carvin Buzzell, Jr.,

1
STATE OF MINNESOTA

IN SUPREME COURT

A20-1561

Court of Appeals Thissen, J.

Carvin Buzzell, Jr.,

Appellant,

vs. Filed: May 18, 2022
Office of Appellate Courts
Tim Walz, as Governor of Minnesota, et al.,

Respondents.

________________________

Matthew E. Anderson, Steven B. Anderson, Anderson Law Group PLLC , Saint Paul,
Minnesota, for appellant.

Keith Ellison, Attorney General , Liz Kramer, Solicitor General, Richard Dornfeld,
Katherine Hinderlie, Assistant Attorneys General, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for respondents.

Katherine M. Swenson, Amran A . Farah, Greene Espel PLLP , Minneapolis, Minnesota,
and;

Karl A. Racine, Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Loren L. AliKhan, Solicitor
General, Caroline S. Van Zile, Principal Deputy Solicitor General, Caroline W. Tan,
Assistant Attorney General, Washington, D.C., for amici curiae District of Columbia, et al.

Lawrence R. McDonough, James Poradek, Housing Justice Center, Saint Paul, Minnesota,
for amici curiae Housing Justice Center, et al.

________________________

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S Y L L A B U S
The government commandeers private property under Minn. Stat. § 12.34 (2020)
when it exercises exclusive control over or obtains exclusive possession of the types of
property listed in the statute such that the government could physically use it for an
emergency management purpose.
Reversed and remanded.
O P I N I O N
THISSEN, Justice.
Appellant Carvin Buzzell, Jr. argues that his hospitality businesses were
commandeered when, in response to the COVID -19 emergency , the Governor issued
emergency executive orders that imposed capacity limits for dining beginning in March
2020. Buzzell asserts that, because he is the owner of commandeered property, he is
entitled to “just compensation” for the government’s “use” of his property under Minn.
Stat. § 12.34 (2020).
During a peacetime emergency and when “necessary to save life, property, or the
environment,” section 12.34, subdivision 1(2), authorizes the governor to “commandeer,
for emergency management purposes[,] . . . any motor vehicles, tools, appliances, medical
supplies, or other personal property and any facilities.” Id., subd. 1. Further, section 12.34,
subdivision 2, provides: “The owner of commandeered property must be promptly paid
just compensation for its use and all damages done to the property while so used for
emergency management purposes.” Id., subd. 2.
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We conclude that, for property to be commandeered, the government must exercise
exclusive control over or obtain exclusive possession of the property such that t he
government could physically use it for an emergency management purpose. The
government exercises exclusive physical control or exclusive possession of private
property when only the government may exercise control or possession of the property and
the owner is denied all control over or possession of the property. We remand to the district
court to determine whether, on the facts alleged and with all reasonable inferences
construed in favor of Buzzell, the Governor exercised exclusive control over or obtained
exclusive possession of Buzzell’s properties such that the government could physically use
them for an emergency purpose.
FACTS
It is difficult to overstate the adverse economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Places of public accommodation have been especially hard-hit. As the district court noted,
“There can be no doubt to anyone that this has been an incredibly challenging situation for
Plaintiff and for many, if not most, small businesses. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic
on the economy and on individuals and small businesses has been staggering.” In the
United States, a pproximately 110,000 restaurants and bars closed at some point between
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March and December 2020.1 And it is estimated that in Minnesota alone, upwards of
10,000 restaurants and bars (a $10.7 billion industry) were adversely affected.2
Buzzell is no exception. Buzzell owns two businesses that accommodate the public
and have been impacted by the COVID -19 pandemic. Buzzell started a vineyard in
Morrison County. In 2010, after the vineyard failed, Buzzell converted a barn on that land
into a wedding venue, naming it Rum River Barn and Vineyard. In early 2018, Buzzell
took on another mortgage to purchase a café in Mi laca, which he then remodeled and
renamed the Timber Valley Bar Grille and Catering.
On March 13, 2020, in response to the emerging COVID -19 pandemic, the
Governor issued Emerg ency Executive Order No. 20 -01, Declaring a Peacetime
Emergency and Coordinating Minnesota’s Strategy to Protect Minnesotans from COVID-
19 (Mar. 13, 2020) . Emergency E xecutive Order No. 20 -01 required state agencies to
coordinate their responses to COVID -19 and advised the public to follow guidance on
precautions to take to avoid the spread of COVID-19. Id. at 2–3. Three days later, the
Governor issued Emergency Executive Order No. 20-04, Providing for Temporary Closure
of Bars, Restaurants, and Other Places of Public Accommodation (Mar. 16, 2020). Stating
that “[t]he COVID -19 pandemic presents an unprecedented challenge to our State,” the
Governor ordered that places of public accommodation serving “food or beverage for on-

1 Nat’l Rest. Ass’n, State of the Restaurant Industry 5 (2021), https://bit.ly/3x2BYK3
(last visited Apr. 15, 2022).

2 Indep. Rest. Coal., Help Protect 276,700 Minnesota Jobs By Investing in
Minnesota’s Restaurant and B ar Community 1, https://bit.ly/30FUzQ4 (last visited Apr.
15, 2022).
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premises consumption” were “closed to ingress, egress, use, and occupancy by members
of the public.” Id. at 2. The Executive Order then clarified the following:
Places of public accommodation subject to this Executive Order are
encouraged to offer food and beverage using delivery service, window
service, walk-up service, drive -through service, or drive-up service, and to
use precautions in doing so to mitigate the potential transmission of COVID-
19, including social distancing. In offering food or beverage, a place of
public accommodation subject to this section may permit up to five members
of th e public at one time in the place of public accommodation for the
purpose of picking up their food or beverage orders, so long as those
individuals are at least six feet apart from one another while on premises.

This Executive Order does not prohibit an e mployee, contractor, vendor, or
supplier of a place of public accommodation from entering, exiting, using, or
occupying that place of public accommodation in their professional capacity.

Id. (numbering omitted).
As conditions worsened, the Governor issu ed more emergency executive orders
through April 2020, extending the capacity and use regulations of Emergency Executive
Order No. 20 -04 and ordering “all persons currently living within the State of
Minnesota . . . to stay at home or in their place of residence” except to engage in excepted
activities and “Critical Sector work.” See, e.g., Emerg. Exec. Order No. 20-33, Extending
Stay at Home Order and Temporary Closure of Bars, Restaurants, and Other Places of
Public Accommodation 2–3 (Apr. 8, 2020). The Governor noted that , “[a]s of April 7,
2020, forty-one other states and the District of Columbia representing almost 318 million
Americans” had issued similar orders. Id. at 2.
On May 26, 2020, the Governor issued Emerg ency Executive Order No. 20 -62,
Amending Executive Order 20 -56 to Allow Worship, Weddings, and Funerals to Proceed
as Safely as Possible During the COVID-19 Peacetime Emergency (May 26, 2020), which
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allowed wedding venues to host weddings with social distancing and occupancy limited to
25 percent of the venue’s normal capacity “as determined by the fire marshal.” Id. at 3.
The next day, the Governor eased restrictions on patio dining at restaurants and bars
(subject to capacity limits and distancing requirements), whil e continuing to limit the
capacity allowed for indoor restaurant and bar spaces to only five members of the public
at one time, for the purpose of picking up their orders. Emer g. Exec. Order No. 20 -63,
Continuing to Safely Reopen Minnesota’s Economy and E nsure Safe Non-Work Activities
During the COVID -19 Peacetime Emergency 7–9 (May 27, 202 0). At no point were
restaurants ordered to completely close; nor were restaurant owners prohibited from using
or accessing, or permitting their employees to use or access, their businesses to prepare and
serve food and beverages to customers.
While the emergency executive orders applied t o all of the restaurants in the state,
those not already equipped to offer takeout or drive-through food services were especially
affected. Buzzell alleged that the Timber Valley Bar Grille and Catering was not
positioned well to serve takeout or drive -through food, and during that time its revenue
dropped by 75 percent. He applied for $10,000 in federal COVID -19 Economic Injury
Disaster Loan funds in early April 2020, but that relief was denied on May 29, 2020.
Four days later, on June 2, 2020, Buzzell filed this cause of action against the
Governor and the Minnesota Executive Council, asserting both a takings claim under Minn.
Const. Art. I, § 13, and a statutory commandeering claim under Minn. Stat. § 12.34, subd.
2. Buzzell’s statutory commandeering claim asserted that his “property and facilities” were
“commandeered” for “use in fighting the spread of the COVID -19.” He requested relief
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of “not less than $40,000” as compensation for “commandeering and using his Timber
Valley Grille since March 13, 2020, to help control the spread of COVID -19 virus.” See
Minn. Stat. § 12.34, subd. 2 (“The owner of commandeered property must be promptly
paid just compensation for its use and all damages done to the property while so used for
emergency management purposes.”). The commandeering claim is the only issue before
us.3
The Governor moved to dismiss under Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(e) and Buzzell moved
for partial summary judgment. The district court granted the Governor’s motion and
denied Buzzell’s motion.
The district court found that Buzzell’s commandeering claim failed as a matter of
law bec ause “none of the [] definitions [of ‘commandeer’] apply to the circumstances
described.” The court turned to dictionary definitions to inform its statutory interpretation:
“to seize for military or police use; confiscate” ; “to take arbitrarily or by force”; or “to
force into military service.” And it noted that Buzzell’s property “was not seized or
confiscated, nor was it taken or forced into military service.”
Buzzell appealed the dismissal of his commandeering claim. T he court of appeals
affirmed, holding that the word “commandeer,” as used in section 12.34, subdivision 1(2),
“unambiguously requires direct, active use of private property by the government.” Buzzell
v. Walz , 962 N.W.2d 894, 899 (Minn. App. 2021) . The court further conclud ed that

3 The district court dismissed Buzzell’s takings claim under the Minnesota
Constitution as a matter of law. Buzzell did not appeal that decision. We express no
opinion on the district court’s constitutional analysis.
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“[commandeering] does not apply in circumstances . . . where the government places
restrictions on a person’s own use of private property” and therefore, “a business owner
subject to operating restrictions under executive orders issued by the gover nor during a
peacetime emergency is not, on that basis, an ‘owner of commandeered property’ entitled
to compensation under Minn. Stat. § 12.34, subd. 2.” Id. at 902.
ANALYSIS
This case arises from an appeal taken from the district court’s order granting the
Governor’s motion to dismiss. See Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(e). We review de novo whether
a claim is stated sufficiently to withstand a motion to dismiss. Hansen v. U.S. Bank Nat’l
Ass’n, 934 N.W.2d 319, 325 (Minn. 2019). We accept the facts alleged in the complaint
as true and construe all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Bergstrom
v. McEwen, 960 N.W.2d 556, 563 (Minn. 2021).
In his complaint, Buzzell alleged that the Governor “commandeered” his facilities
“for use to stop the spread of the COVID -19 virus.” Whether Buzzell’s property was
“commandeered” by emergency executive orders regulating the use of his property turns
on the meaning of “commandeer” in section 12.34, subdivision 1(2). 4 That is an issue of

4 Whether the governor has “commandeered” private property for emergency
management purposes is an issue of first impressio n. Examples of commandeering in
Minnesota case law are rare. We are not aware of any other emergency management
commandeering cases, and the cases that address “commandeering” in other contexts
concern either sovereignty issues (one government commandeering the power of another
government) or physical commandeering (a robber attempting to commandeer a car to use
as a getaway vehicle). See, e.g., In re Welfare of Child of S.B. , No. A19-0225, 2019 WL
6698079, at *6 (Minn. App. Dec. 9, 2019) (addressing th e anticommandeering doctrine
between federal and state governments) , rev. denied (Minn. Jan. 9, 2020) ; Meric v. Mid-
9
statutory interpretation, which we review de novo. State v. Thonesavanh, 904 N.W.2d 432,
435 (Minn. 2017).
“The first step in statutory interpretation is to determine whether the statute’s
language on its face i s ambiguous”—whether it is “subject to more than one reasonable
interpretation.” Id. When determining whether a statue is ambiguous, “words and phrases
are construed according to rules of grammar and according to their common and approved
usage.” Minn. Stat. § 645.08(1) (2020). The specific “meaning of a word depends on how
it is being used in context.” Barrow v. State, 862 N.W.2d 686, 691 (Minn. 2015) (citation
omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the context is emergency management.
Minnesota Statutes § 12.34 is part of the Minnesota Emergency Management Act.
Minnesota Statutes § 12.02 declares the policy of the Act:
Because of the existing and increasing possibility of the occurrence of natural
and other disasters of major size and destructiveness and in order to
(1) ensure that preparations of this state will be adequate to deal with
disasters, (2) generally protect the public peace, health, and safety, and
(3) preserve the lives and property of the people of the state, the legislature
finds and declares it necessary: . . . to confer upon the governor . . . powers
provided in this chapter.

Id., subd. 1 (2020). The powers conferred o n the governor relevant here are as follows:
“general direction and control of emergency management,” Minn. Stat. § 12.21, subd. 1
(2020); the power to declare a peacetime emergency, Minn. Stat. § 12.31, subd. 2(a)
(2020); and the power to “make, amend, and rescind the necessary orders and rules to carry
out the provisions of this chapter,” Minn. Stat. § 12.21, subd. 3(1) (2020). In addition, the

Century Ins. Co. , 343 N.W.2d 688, 689 –90 (Minn. App. 1984) (reviewing an insurance
claim for injury resulting from a robber attempting to “commandeer” a get-away vehicle).
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Legislature granted the governor the powers set forth in Minn. Stat. § 12.34, subd. 1, which
provides:
When necessary to save life, property, or the environment during a national
security emergency or during a peacetime emergency, the governor, the state
director, or a member of a class of members of a state or local emergency
management organization designated by the governor, may:
(1) require any person, except members of the federal or state
military forces and officers of the state or a political subdivision, to
perform services for emergency management purposes as directed by
any of the persons described above; and
(2) commandeer, for emergency management purposes as directed
by any of the persons described above, any motor vehicles, tools,
appliances, medical supplies, or other personal property and any
facilities.

Minn. Stat. § 12.34, subdivision 2, provides:
The owner of commandeered property must be promptly paid just
compensation for its use and all damages done to the property while so used
for emergency management purposes. The governor or the governing body
of the political subdivision concerned, respectively, according to the use of
the property, shall make a formal order determining the amount of
compensation. The owner may appeal to the district court of the county in
which the property was commandeered if, within 30 d ays from the date of
the order, the owner serves upon the governor or the political subdivision
concerned and files with the court administrator of the district court a written
notice of appeal setting forth the order appealed from and, in detail, the
amount claimed as compensation. Upon appeal, the issue is the amount of
damages to which the appellant is entitled.

(Emphasis added.)
Accordingly, the statute authorizes the governor to require people to assist the
government by performing emergency manageme nt services and authorizes the governor
to “commandeer . . . motor vehicles, tools, appliances, medical supplies, or other personal
property and any facilities.” Id., subd. 1. A “facility” includes “any real property, building,
structure, or other improv ement to real property,” but it “does not include a private
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residence.” Minn. Stat. § 12.03, subd. 4f (2020). Before the government may exercise this
authority, two conditions must be satisfied: (1) the action must be “necessary to save life,
property, or the environment during a national security emergency or during a peacetime
emergency,” and (2) the action must be “for emergency management purposes.” Minn.
Stat. § 12.34, subd. 1. Buzzell does not dispute the Governor’s authority to commandeer
private property for use in responding to an emergency. In fact, that is what he alleges the
Governor did here —commandeered his hospitality businesses for use in protecting the
public from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Legislature did not define commandeer in the s tatute. “In the absence of
statutory definitions, we give words their plain and ordinary meaning” and “may consider
dictionary definitions to determine the meaning of a statutory term. ” In re Krogstad,
958 N.W.2d 331, 334 (Minn. 2021) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted) .
Dictionaries of common use define “commandeer” consistently, using almost identical
language: “to compel to perform military service”; “to seize for military purposes”; “to
take arbitrary or forcible possession of .” See, e.g. , Merriam Webster’s Collegiate
Dictionary 230 (10th ed. 1996).
The first common definition—“to compel to perform military service”—is unlikely
the meaning of commandeer as used in section 12.34, subdivision 1(2), because
government-compelled personal service is covered in the immediately preceding
subdivision and is not subject to compensation. Minn. Stat. § 12.34, subds. 1(1), 2. This
statutory context narrow s the consistent common meaning of commandeer to the
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definitions “to seize for military purposes”5 or “to take arbitrary or forcible possession of.”
Turning to the definition “to seize for military purposes,” the term “seize” itself has several
different ordinary meanings: to vest ownership in, to take possession of, to confiscate, to
capture, to arrest. See, e.g. , Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 1058 ( 10th ed.
1996). As related to the term commandeering and the statute , however, the “take
possession of” and “confiscate” senses of seize are most apt. Correspondingly, with respect
to the definition “to take arbitrary or forcible possession of,” the term “possession,” in this
context, has the meaning “control or occupancy of property without regard to ownership.”
See, e.g., id. at 909.

5 The “military” context of the common definitions of commandeering is worth
noting. Since enacting the Minnesota Emergency Management Act, the Legislature has
always expressly excluded “functions for which military forces are primarily responsible”
from its definition of emergency management. See Act of Mar. 19, 1996, ch. 344, § 12.03,
subd. 4, 1996 Minn. Laws 267, 269 (codified as amended at Minn. Stat. § 12.03, subd. 4
(2020)). However, the Legislature first conferred the emergency power to “commandeer”
on the governor in the Minnesota Civil Defense Act of 1951. Act of Apr. 23, 1951, ch. 694,
§ 304, subds. 1 –2, 1951 Minn. Laws 1191, 1202 –03. Like a hermit crab, the Minnesota
Emergency Management Act essentially coopted the Civil Defense Act in 1996 for a new
purpose. The Civil Defense Act expressly limited the governor’s authority to commandeer
to civil defense —“to prevent, minimize and repair injury and damage resulting from
disasters caused by enemy attack, sabotage or other enemy hostile action.” Id. at § 3, subd.
1 (1951).
Thus, when the Legislature first conferred “commandeering” authority on the
governor, the statutory context precisely referred to military use. Thus, it is reasonable to
read the word “commandeer” through the lens of what we commonly understand a military
force to do when it commandeers —armed forces take control of food, property, vehicles,
and other objects to feed, house, transport, and otherwise support troops to assist the
military efforts. This is also important because military use is a paradigmatic public use.
While the purposes for which the governor can commandeer property were expanded, the
contemplated types and uses of commandeered property remained physical (“motor
vehicles, tools, appliances, medical supplies, or other personal property”). See Minn. Stat.
§ 12.34, subd. 1(2).
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Consequently, the ordinary meaning of commandeer carries with it a sense of
exclusive physical control or possession of private property such that, for the time that the
property is commandeered, only the government can exercise control or possession over
the property and the owner is denied all control or possession over the property. This
conclusion is supported by the statutory context. All the items that may be commandeered
are physical items. See Minn. Stat. § 12.34, subd. 1(2) (identifying the property that may
be commandeered to include “motor vehicles, tools, appliances, medical supplies, or other
personal property and any facilities”); see also State v. Khalil , 956 N.W.2d 627, 638–39
(Minn. 2021) (“We generally recognize that statutes are commonly constructed to include
specific items followed by a general catch -all term intend ed to capture the same kind or
class of items as those specifically identified.”).
Therefore, for purposes of section 12.34, we conclude that the government
commandeers private property when it exercises exclusive control over or obtains
exclusive possession of the types of property listed in section 12.34, subdivision 1(2), such
that the government could physically use it for an emergency management purpose . The
government exercises exclusive physical control or exclusive possession of private
property when only the government may exercise control or possession of the property and
the owner is denied all control over or possession of the property.6

6 The parties offered extensive analysis of the court of appeals’ holding that the
meaning of “commandeer” requires “direct, active use” by t he government. Because we
do not adopt the court of appeals’ definition, we do not address those arguments.
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Buzzell offers a different approach to section 12.34. He argues that because section
12.34 uses words (“just compensation,” “property,” and “use”) that are also used in
Minnesota’s eminent domain statutes, see, e.g., Minn. Stat. § 117.155, subd. 2 (2020), as
well as the Takings Clause of the Minnesota Constitution , Minn. Const. art. I, § 13, the
statute is “inescapably tied to constitutional takings.” He then posits that because
commandeering is a type of constitutional taking, the word “commandeer” is not limited
to a physical seizure of property, but also imports from constitutional takings jurisprudence
the notion of a regulatory taking or “government interference with the owner’s use of the
property.” We disagree.
Buzzell’s argument simply stretches the statutory text of section 12.34 too far. See
State v. Fugalli, 967 N.W.2d 74, 78 (Minn. 2021) (rejecting an interpretation of a statute
because the “argument works too hard and unduly strains the ordinary meaning of the
language adopted by the Legislature”). If Buzzell is correct that section 12.34 is importing
the broader constitutional me aning of a taking, one would reasonably expect that the
Legislature would use the critical word “taking” or “taken” in the statute. It did not; it used
the different word commandeer.7

7 The headnote of section 12.34 is “Assistance Required, Compensation for Property
Taken, Penalty.” Under Minn. Stat. § 645.49 (2020), “[t]he headnotes printed in boldface
type before sections and subdivisions in editions of Minnesota Statutes are mere
catchwords to indicate the contents of the section or subdivision and are not part of the
statute.” See Sheridan v. Comm’r of Revenue, 963 N.W.2d 712, 718 (Minn. 2021) (citation
omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted) (stating that headnote “has no value as an aid
to statutory construction for a determination of the legislative intent . . . because
headnotes . . . are mere catchwords . . . and are not part of the statute”) Further, review of
the statutory history shows that the hea dnote language first appeared in 2002 and that the
legislative history of the statute demonstrates that the phrase “Compensation for Property
15
We also decline to construe the eminent domain statutes, Minn. Stat. §§ 117.01–.57
(2020), and the emergency management statutes, Minn. Stat. §§ 12.01–.61 (2020), together
for two reasons. First, we have already concluded that the meaning of “commandeer” in
the emergency management statutes is unambiguous. Second, chapter 117 and chapter 12
govern distinct government powers, each bound by distinct statutory procedures. See
Thonesavanh, 904 N.W.2d at 437 –38 (explaining that two statutes may be construed
together (the canon of in pari materia) only when interpreting an ambiguous statute, and
only when the statutes share a common purpose and subject matter ; for example, statutes
that define two degrees of the same crime).
Critically, Buzzell himself does not make a constitutional takings argument on
appeal, taking the position that “[i]n takings jurisprudence, a regulation that ‘is a proper
effort to protect the health, morals, or safety of the community which ha s the effect of
prohibiting a particular use of a property ’ is not a ‘taking.’ ” (quoting Zeman v. City of
Minneapolis, 552 N.W.2d 548, 553 (Minn. 1996)). Essentially, Buzzell’s position before
us is that Executive Orders that imposed limits on dining ca pacity in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic do not constitute takings under the takings clause of the Minnesota
Constitution.8 He recognizes that this position causes a problem for his statutory argument

Taken” never appeared in any bill enacted by the Legislature. See Act of March 19, 1996,
ch. 244, § 23, 1996 Minn. Laws 267, 284; Act of May 22, 2002, ch. 402, § 13, 2002 Minn.
Laws 1694, 1699; S.M. Hentges & Sons, Inc. v. Mensing, 777 N.W.2d 228, 231 n.1 (Minn.
2010) (stating that headnote was not relevant when it was not part of the original legislative
process).

8 After oral argument, both parties submitted as supplemental authority the Eighth
Circuit opinion Heights Apartments, LLC v. Walz , No. 21 -1278, 2022 WL 1009466 (8th
16
that section 12.34 simply imports constitutional takings principles —if the emergency
management restrictions on Buzzell’s businesses did not constitute an unconstitutional
taking, then even if the commandeering statute imported takings jurisprudence, it would
not help Buzzell.
Buzzell seek s to iron out that wrinkle in his argument by claiming that the
Legislature intended section 12.34 to fill the public health and safety “gap” in takings
jurisprudence by statutorily requiring compensation when the government places
limitations on the use of property during a public health emergency. There is no evidence
that the Legislature intended to do so here, however. Indeed, had the Legislature intended
to fill a constitutional gap, as Buzzell proposes, we would expect that, rather than trying to
squeeze an entire compensation scheme for regulatory takings otherwise excepted for
public health and safety into the single word “commandeer,” the Legislature would have
taken a much more direct path to do so. See Jepsen as Trustee for Dean v. County of Pope,
966 N.W.2d 472, 486 (Minn. 2021) (rejecting a statutory interpretation argument on the
basis that, had the Legislature intended a particular meaning, it would have chosen a more
direct textual path ). Moreover, the textual history renders Buzzell ’s gap -filling

Cir. April 5, 2022). The case involved several constitutional challenges to the Governor’s
use of emergency powers to limit the power of landlords to evict tenants in response to the
COVID pandemic, including a takings claim under the United States Constitution. The
case did not address the meaning of the commandeering provision in section 12.34.
Moreover, as noted, Buzzell did not appeal from the court of appeals affirmance of the
district court’s dismissal of his constitutional takings claim. Finally, as set forth above, we
reject Buzzell’s argument that section 12.34 incorporates our regulatory takings
jurisprudence. Accordingly, we conclude that Heights Apartments has no impact on our
decision in this case and we decline to engage with a constitutional takings analysis beyond
what is necessary to resolve the meaning of commandeer in section 12.34.
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interpretation questionable. As noted, the word commandeer was not initially enacted in a
statute dealing with public health and safety at all; it was used in a civil defense statute.
We recognize that the meaning of commandeer in section 12.34 is an issue of first
impression. Today we adopt a definition that neither the court of appeals nor the district
court applied in determining whether Buzzell stated a claim sufficient to survive a motion
to dismiss under Rule 12.02(e). We also note that “Minnesota is a notice -pleading state
and does not require absolute specificity in pleading, but rather requires only information
sufficient to fairly notify the opposing party of the claim against it” and that “[u]nder our
law, the pleading of broad general statements that may be conclusory is permitted .”
DeRosa v. McKenzie , 936 N.W.2d 342, 346 (Minn. 2019) (citations omitted) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Further, “a pleading will be dismissed only if it appears to a
certainty that no facts, which could be introduced consistent with the pleading, exist which
would support granting the relief demanded .” N. States Power Co. v. Franklin , 122
N.W.2d 26, 29 (Minn. 1963) . We remand this case to the district court to determine
whether the allegations in the complaint could support the conclusion that, by issuing the
emergency orders, the Governor exercised exclusive control over or obtained exclusive
possession of Buzzell’s p roperty such that the government could physically use it for
emergency management purpose s. In other words, the district court must determine
whether, under the emergency orders, only the government could exercise physical control
or possession of Buzzell’s property and Buzzell was prevented from exercising any control
over or possession of his property.

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CONCLUSION
Therefore, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals and remand to the district
court.
Reversed and remanded.