June 2025

In Muskingum County Convention Facilities Auth. v. Barnes Advertising Corp., No. CT2024-0134 (May 22, 2025), the Ohio Court of Appeal upheld the Authority’s taking of two billboard easements where the stated purpose was for a “new facility serving the City of Zanesville and Muskingum County community[.]” Slip op. at 3.

OK, but what public use is that “new facility” for? How about we describe it by cutting-and-pasting the language in the statute which gives us the authority to take facilities, which defines “facility?” Check it out:

The CFA’s petition to appropriate the billboard easements states that “[t]he [CFA] is currently undertaking a public project to develop a new facility serving the City of Zanesville and Muskingum County community.” That petition describes the “new facility” as “any convention, entertainment, or sports facility, or combination of them, located within the territory of a convention facilities authority, together with all…

Continue Reading Ohio App: Reciting The Statutory Definition Is Enough To State A Public Use

TX EmDomain2025

Mark your calendars — or better yet, register now — for the 8th Annual Texas Eminent Domain Conference (Houston), August 14-15, 2025.

We’ve attended in the past, and can report from first-hand experience that it is a great conference, chock-full of the information you need for eminent domain practice in the Lone Star State. 

Check out the agenda and speaker list., and thee to Houston!Continue Reading Register Now: 8th Annual Texas Eminent Domain Conference, Houston: August 14-15, 2025

Although the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s opinion in Warner v. City of Marathon, No. 2024-10901 (May 27, 2025) is unpublished, we’re posting it here because, as the title notes, this one might be the last victim of Williamson County‘s “state procedures” requirement.

As frequent flyers know, between 1985 and 2019 a property owner who claimed that a local government action resulted in a de facto taking of property under the Fifth Amendment could only raise that claim in a state court. The theory being that there had not been a taking without just compensation unless and until the state courts had told a claimant no compensation. And thus, the federal takings claim (and along with it, federal court jurisdiction) was not ripe until a property owner lost a state claim in state court.

Once that occurred it was theoretically possible, now having ripened a…

Continue Reading The Final Victim Of Williamson County?