Eminent Domain | Condemnation

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Yes, it’s that time of the year again. Fall’s-a-coming, and that means that soon, we’ll be back at the William and Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia to lead two courses:

  • Eminent Domain and Property Rights
  • Land Use Controls

Unlike last year, we’re not going to be on Zoom, or in the Tennis Center, or even spread out in a distanced classroom. Back in-person with some precautions taken.

The registration numbers are good (really good), and two full classrooms will be a nice sight after what seems like a very long time.

Time to jack back into the (takings and land use) Matrix.

6a00d83451707369e20240a476d216200c-800wiContinue Reading Back To School: Season Four

Screenshot 2021-08-11 at 14-56-53 Constitutional Litigator Property Rights (two openings) Pacific Legal Foundation

You’ve got big dreams, you want fame…

If so, here’s your chance: two (2!) Takings Maven Dream Jobs® are now available.

Pacific Legal Foundation requesting applications for positions as a Property Rights Constitutional Litigator. Job description includes “You will find and win the next important Supreme Court property rights case.”

Oh, have we got your attention now?

You: An entrepreneurial freedom fighter with a passion for, and significant experience in, property rights litigation. You find and win cutting-edge property rights cases across the country. You are a national spokesperson for property rights—you speak at conferences, engage the media, and publish scholarship on property rights. You are a leader who will elevate PLF’s junior attorneys to be the best property rights litigators in the nation. You have demonstrated a dedication to public interest law and property rights throughout your career.

…

You will be a leader in PLF’s…

Continue Reading Takings Maven Dream Job® (x2): Property Rights Constitutional Litigator at Pacific Legal Foundation

All the topics you want to know about, presented by top-notch faculty from across the nation. Sessions include:

  • Property Rights as Civil Rights
  • Eminent Domain National Update
  • Just Relocation: Understanding the Law and Regulations to Ensure Fairness
  • Challenging Public Use: Lessons From a 67-Day Trial
  • COVID Takings
  • Federal Court and the Daubert Challenge: How to Prepare
  • Did the Supreme Court Signal a New Direction in Property Rights in Cedar Point Nursery?
  • How to Position Your Client for the Fallout When Projects Don’t Get Built
  • Rural Broadband and the Emerging Constitutional Challenges
  • Are Precondemnation Entry Statutes Still Valid After Cedar Point Nursery?
  • How Condemnor and Property Owners’ Counsel Prepare the Battlefield
  • How Will the Trillion Dollar Infrastructure Bill Impact Your Practice?
  • Ethics
  • …and more, including a full slate of networking and social events!

We’ve sold out the last few years, so don’t miss out. Room block now taking reservations. Continue Reading Join Us For The 39th Annual ALI-CLE Eminent Domain & Land Valuation Litigation Conference, Jan 26-29, 2022 (Scottsdale, AZ)

Programming note: as we noted here, we’ve recently moved our email subscribers to a new service. If you are already subscribed to our email updates you should not need to do anything, except look for the emails coming from Feedblitz, not Feedburner. If you want to sign up for email updates anew, go here. If you experience technical issues, or receive duplicate email notifications, please let me know.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming…

Screenshot 2021-07-26 at 09-25-52 Givens v Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC and the Unresolved Circuit Split

Be sure to take a read of an article we’ve had in our queue to read for a while: Karen Adlay, Givens v. Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC and the Unresolved Circuit Split, 7 Tex. A. & M. J. Prop. L. 137 (2021).

Several federal courts of appeals — including the Fourth Circuit in Givens — have upheld giving prejudgment possession of property to a private pipeline condemnor once a …

Continue Reading New L Rev Article: “Givens v. Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC and the Unresolved Circuit Split” (Tex. A. & M. J. Prop. L.)


Talk amongst yourselves.

We’ve had our say, so in this post — the sixth and final post in a series of deeper dives about June’s U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid , No. 20-107 (June 23, 2021) — we’re linking to what others are saying about the case.

Here are all of the posts in our Cedar Point series:

And in case you missed the live webcast on Friday, July 16, 2021 that featured expert analysis of the case, please don’t miss listening to the recording of ALI-CLE’s “Takings and Eminent Domain After Cedar Point: What Practitioners …

Continue Reading Cedar Point Part VI: What Others Are Saying

In this post — the fifth and penultimate post in a series of deeper dives that we’re posting about June’s U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, No. 20-107 (June 23, 2021) — we’ll be trying to take some educated guesses about what the decision means for the future.

Here are all of the posts in our Cedar Point series:

And in case you missed the live webcast on Friday, July 16, 2021 that featured expert analysis of the case, please don’t miss listening to the recording of ALI-CLE’s “Takings and Eminent Domain After Cedar Point: What …

Continue Reading Cedar Point Part V: Help Us Help You

The State of New York needed a strip of the owner’s property for a “greenway” for walkers and bikers. The State and the owner agreed that if the owner believed that the advance payment of $300k was not enough, it could ask the Court of Claims for more. But they also agreed that if that court concluded the amount for the taking was less than advance payment, the owner would owe the State the difference, plus interest.

After trial, the claims court concluded that the advance payment exceeded the amount of compensation owed — indeed, was below the range of values testified to by each side’s expert — and the owner thus owed the State in the neighborhood of $18k. 

In Elpa Builders, Inc. v. State of New York, No. D66949 (July 14, 2021), the Appellate Division (Second Department) made typically short work of the owner’s claim that the…

Continue Reading NY App Div: If Deposit Exceeds Adjudicated Compensation, Owner May Be Liable To Pay The Difference

We’re not going to pretend that we can actually read what the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico’s opinion in Administración de Terrenos de Puerto Rico v. Ponce Bayland Enterprises, Inc., No. CC-2019-212 (June 29, 2021) says. It’s in Spanish and we don’t know Spanish. Wish we did, truly.

But hey, that’s what Google Translate is for, right? And if that service can be believed, here’s what the summary of the case roughs out to:

Compulsory Expropriation – The Expropriation Chamber of the Court of First Instance has jurisdiction to consider evidence of environmental pollution and the costs of remedying it in forced expropriation lawsuits to determine the market value of the expropriated property at the time of seizure. The admissibility of evidence about contamination and the costs of remedying it is subject to the provisions of the Rules of Evidence.

We’re not posting the case because the opinion raises…

Continue Reading El Tribunal Supremo De Puerto Rico: Evidence Of Environmental Contamination Is Admissible In Eminent Domain Valuation

What do you think about these facts in RLR Investments, LLC v. City of Pigeon Forge, No. 20-6375 (July 13, 2021), a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on what we might charitably call an obscure legal doctrine (Rooker–Feldman)?

City wanted some of RLR’s property to build a walkway and replacement parking for RLR’s parking that the walkway would displace. Eminent domain ensued. RLR objected to the take: no public use. The Tennessee trial court considering the condemnation suit disagreed, and concluded twice (once at the hearing on immediate possession, the other on a motion for summary judgment) that the taking was supported by a public use or purpose. 

Next step, valuation trial right?

Not in the view of the property owner, who, continuing to maintain that the taking was defective, filed its own civil rights lawsuit in federal…

Continue Reading CA6: Rooker-Feldman Bars Federal Lawsuit Challenging State Court’s Public Use Determination

Permanentortemporary

In this post — the fourth in a series of deeper dives that we’re posting about June’s U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, No. 20-107 (June 23, 2021) — we’ll be discussing the two separate opinions, Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence, and the Justice Breyer-authored dissent.

Here are all of the posts in our Cedar Point series:

And in case you missed the live webcast on Friday, July 16, 2021 that featured expert analysis of the case, please don’t miss listening to the recording of ALI-CLE’s “Takings and Eminent Domain After Cedar Point: What Practitioners Need to Know…

Continue Reading Cedar Point Part IV: The Other Opinions