2020

The holding of the Indiana Court of Appeals in City of Kokomo v. Estate of Newton, No. 19A-PL-1321 (Dec. 18, 2019) is deceptively simple: if a party does not own a formal interest in the property being taken, evidence of the damages which it incurred as a result of the condemnation isn’t relevant to the calculation of just compensation. 

That’s workable as a black-letter rule, we suppose. But what about the very common situation where, due to circumstances, someone with an obvious stake in property being taken had not formalized that interest prior to the condemnation? 

That appears to have been the situation in Newton, where the two condemned properties had been owned by real-party-in-interest (Bradley Newton)’s mother at the time of her death. The properties were used by a company she also owned, Kokomo Glass. When she died, her son Wesley became the owner of the two parcels…

Continue Reading If You Want To Claim An Interest In A Condemnation Award, Formalize The Interest

Okyoda

It’s 2020, so out with the old, in with the new.

We like any opinion that starts off with “[t]he facts giving rise to this appeal are complicated but do not require a lengthy recitation.” Because that signals the opinion writer has done the hard work, because in order to explain complicated facts in a simpler way, the writer must have focused only on the critical facts (unlike a lot of brief and opinion writers). For that reason, we started off the New Year diving into the Supreme Court of Kansas’ opinion in GFTLenexa LLC v. City of Lenexa, No. 119278 (Dec. 6, 2019). It’s about the old problem of who is entitled to be compensated when property subject to multiple interests is taken. 

Here are the “complicated” facts: Oak Park owned land. It leased it to Centres. Centres, in turn, subleased it to Bridgestone for a tire shop. Later…

Continue Reading Kansas: Tenant With An Interest In Property Who Knew It Was Being Condemned Is Precluded From A Later Inverse Claim