Eminent Domain | Condemnation

Subscribe to Eminent Domain | Condemnation via RSS

Here’s the cert petition in a case we’ve been following since it was decided in the property owner’s favor by the Colorado Court of Appeals.

In Carousel Farms Metro. Dist. v. Woodcrest Homes, Inc., 444 P.3d 802 (Colo. App. 2017), the court invalidated an attempt to exercise eminent domain to take property which the owner had refused to sell to developer Carousel Farms. Carousel Farms needed the parcel because without it, Carousel Farms’ agreement with the local municipality to allow the development (known as — you guessed it — Carousel Farms), could not go forward. In response to the owners’ refusal to sell, Carousel Farms formed an entity which under Colorado law has the power of eminent domain, named — get this — the Carousel Farms Metropolitan District. (Protip: if you are forming an entity with the power of eminent domain in order to take property for private…

Continue Reading Hawaii Pretext Case At Center In New IJ Cert Petition: Actual Reason For Taking Trumps Stated Reason

Registration underway, so come join us! Agenda full of hot topics in takings and appraisal law! The best national faculty! Renew friendships, and make new colleagues! And Nashville! 

Download the brochure and make your plans for January. (Don’t wait, we’ve sold out the past three years.)Continue Reading Register Now! ALI-CLE Eminent Domain And Land Valuation Litigation Conference (Nashville, Jan 23-25, 2020)

Dad was from upstate New York. More correctly, a town literally in both New York and Vermont (the state line runs right through the middle of the burg). His mother’s family were old time rural Vermonters, and he shared many of the stereotypical traits of his people – solid, self-reliant, taciturn. Many questions answered solely with a “yup” or “nope.” 

Romaine Tenney was one of those classic Vermonters. He entered the pages of history more than fifty years ago when, in reaction to the taking of his farm for Interstate 91, he burned his house and farm buildings down, and shot himself. He had nowhere else to go. As author Howard Mansfield puts it:

Tenney was that farmer by the road tourists used to stop and talk to as they sought out a specific kind of Vermont experience.

“Romaine himself, personally, he never went to town meeting, he didn’t write…

Continue Reading A Permanent Memorial To Romaine Tenney, Vermont Eminent Domain Victim

With the ongoing wildfire dramas ongoing across California, several of you have asked us to collect the posts we have done about inverse condemnation liability in one place. So here you go:

As you can see from the above video, this one isn’t over. Stay tuned.Continue Reading All Of Our Past California Wildfires And Inverse Condemnation Posts

Untitled Extract Pages

One should never be surprised, we suppose, when the Supreme Court denies a cert petition due to the daunting statistics, but we really thought that maybe the third time was a charm for the quick-take-by-preliminary-injunction issue, and that the Givens petition had a real chance. The petition was strong, the issue (in our opinion) was compelling: can private pipeline companies obtain immediate precondemnation possession of land and start construction of a pipeline even though the Natural Gas Act delegates to them only the straight-takings power?  

Alas no, the Court today issued an Order declining to review the case (and gazillions of others). The circuit split is the Seventh vs everyone else, but apparently the Supreme Court is more interested in ensuring the circuits are consistent than it is about separation of powers issues, and making sure that the “despotic power” is wielded carefully, especially when it is private for-profit …

Continue Reading Cert Denied (Again) In Quick-Take-By-Injunction Pipeline Case

IMG_20191004_124327

Here is a transcript of the remarks I delivered today at the 2019 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference. I was honored to join lawprof Henry Smith and Florida Supreme Court Justice (ret.) Ken Bell (who authored the Florida court’s opinion in Stop the Beach Renourishment which was challenged in SCOTUS as a “judicial taking”) to speak about “Public Resources and Private Rights” (moderated by Professor Katherine Mims Crocker). After paying our respects to 2019 B-K Prize winner Professor Steven Eagle, we each addressed some part of the question.

—————————-

The New New Property

As always, I bring to you tidings of “aloha” from the state where the legislature thought it was a going to reduce the price of residential housing by taking fee simple interests from “A” and giving them to “B,” the leaseholders. 

Where now, the median price for a single-family, two bedroom, one bath…

Continue Reading 2019 Brigham-Kanner Conference: The New New Property – Public Resources And Private Rights

IMG_20191003_114853

Today’s the kickoff events for William and Mary Law School’s Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference. We started the day with eminent domain and property law attorneys speaking about the practice of law (pictured above, Justin Hodge (TX) and Christian Torgrimson (GA)).

Toronto’s Shane Rayman and I spoke about international and comparative property and eminent domain (expropriation) and how even though our way of approaching cases may be different, the goals are the same: justice and fair treatment for our clients. And what we can learn about our own cases by looking at how other jurisdictions do it. 

In that vein, here are the links to the cases we (and others) mentioned:

…
Continue Reading 2019 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference Kickoff

800px-Seal_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_Republic_of_the_Philippines.svg

Reading through the opinion of the Supreme Court of the Philippines in City of Manila v. Roces Prieto, No. 221366 (Aug. 29, 2019), there is a lot there that will look familiar to U.S. lawyers, specifically U.S. eminent domain lawyers.

Viz.: It is up before the Court on a petition for certiorari, there was an effort to voluntarily acquire the properties, an “expropriation” lawsuit gets filed when that didn’t work, and the City deposited estimated compensation and sought a writ of immediate possession from the trial court. That court balked because the deposit amount didn’t comply with the requirements of the statute, but once the City fixed that problem, the court allowed immediate possession. Sounds very familiar. 

The takings were in furtherance of something called the Land-for-the-Landless program, which this article describes as a process by which “[t]hrough expropriation, the city government buys private properties that are then…

Continue Reading Berman International – Philippines Supreme Court: Takings Must Undergo “Painstaking” Judicial Scrutiny

Last week, along with Bob Grace, I (Robert (don’t-call-me-Bob) Thomas), was a guest on Clint Schumacher’s Eminent Domain Podcast. Stream it above, or download it here.

Clint and I had a wide-ranging discussion that centered on the recent trend of limiting short-term rentals, the legal pushback, and (of course) takings. We discussed the memorably-captioned Tiki Island case from Clint’s home state of Texas. Penn Central, naturally. Vested rights. Mrs. Murphy exceptions (although those deal with discrimination in rental housing). First Amendment stuff. The upcoming ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation Conference in Nashville (Jan 23-25, 2020), at which both Clint and Bob are speaking. And The Castle (which might not only be our favorite eminent domain movie, but our favorite movie period). 

Check it out.

Not only is Clint presenting at our Ethics program in Nashville in January, he will — as he did…

Continue Reading Latest Ep, Eminent Domain Podcast: Short-Term Rentals, Tiki Island, The Castle, Penn Central