Eminent Domain | Condemnation

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Yeah, at the ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation Conference now ongoing in San Diego, we talk severance damages, relocation benefits, highest and best use, pipelines, energy corridors, temporary construction easements, and blah, blah, blah.

But what really matters is when our St. Louis colleague Paul Henry (the bravest man we know) presents “Everything About Eminent Domain I Need To Know I Learned From Star Trek.” 

In a Starfleet uniform.

To a room full of the nation’s best eminent domain lawyers.

As one of the Planning Chairs, we told Paul that he could present this topic, but only if he did it in uniform. Well played, Captain!Continue Reading Star Trek: 2017 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain And Land Valuation Litigation Conference, San Diego

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Here are the links and references to the cases we spoke about today at our opening session on the national trends in eminent domain law at the 2017 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation Conference in San Diego. 

We again have a record attendance, and a good number of new attendees. If you aren’t here now, we’re sorry you didn’t make it. But fear not: ALI-CLE has already set the date and location for the 2018 Conference: save the date on your calendars now — January 25-27, 2018, Charleston, South Carolina, at the Francis Marion Hotel. 

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Continue Reading Day 1, 2017 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain And Land Valuation Litigation Conference, San Diego

HSBA 2017 Land Use Conference

To supplement your written materials for the 2017 Hawaii Land Use Conference, here are the decisions and other materials which we spoke about this morning at the 2017 Hawaii Land Use Conference:  

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Continue Reading Notes And Links From Today’s Hawaii Land Use Conference Session On Reg Takings

LittlePinkHouse

“Little Pink House,” the movie based on Jeff Benedict’s 2009 book, Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage, about the backstory to Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), will soon be in theaters. 

We know about the legal issues the case presented, but the book and the film center more around the human story. About this time last year, we spoke to Ted Balaker, one of the film’s producers, who gave us an inside look at the film (which was still being edited). Ever since, we’ve been eagerly anticipating the feature, which has some familiar faces in key roles. The film stars Catherine Keener (Capote) as Susette Kelo and Jeanne Tripplehorn (The Firm, Basic Instinct) as the head of the New London Redevelopment agency.

The movie will have its world premiere at the…

Continue Reading Little Pink House Movie Premiering

A question for those of you who do a lot of straight condemnation work: do you drive roads and highways with a slightly different outlook than the rest of the motoring public, especially on those roads where you represented a property owner defending against eminent domain? While others see signs and intersections and the like, is your focus instead on your owners’ (former) property, the construction easements, the appraisals, and the issues you argued in the taking case?

Call us weird, but that’s how we drive “our” roads.

Recently, we had that old deja vu because we were in the neighborhood of a road in which we represented two of the condemned. The courthouse in Kona on the Big Island is a stone’s throw from a County of Hawaii road project, only recently completed, that was one of our mostly hotly contested eminent domain cases, one that resulted in three…

Continue Reading Ode To A Road

We love Leo Rosten’s classic definition of chutzpah: “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.” Mr. Rosten’s dictum stretches around the world — apparently even into its remote corners such as the Northern Marianas Islands.

Check out CNMI v. Lot No 281-5 R/W, No. 2013-SCC-0006 (Dec. 28, 2016), for the exemplar. In that case, the CNMI government took private property belonging to Ms. Quitugua. Not by regulating it (a favorite topic of this blog), but by “straight condemnation.” That is, the CNMI exercised the power of eminent domain to build a road. Not great for the owner, but she apparently didn’t object and indeed stipulated to a final judgment which granted the CNMI fee simple title, and gave her a judgment of $77,137 plus interest for just compensation. So far, so…

Continue Reading What If The Government Gives A Takings Party, But Doesn’t Show Up?

JohnHuntNightman

Like the Elizabethan gong farmer — whose job it was to police up the unpleasant remnants after the “main event” — the opinion of a court of appeal after a remand from the Supreme Court is often anticlimactic, and other than the parties involved no one really wants to see or hear about it too much.  

The California Court of Appeal’s recent opinion in Property Reserve, Inc. v. Superior Court, No. C067758A (Dec. 16, 2016), strikes us as one of those. This decision came back to the court after the California Supreme Court’s “main event,” the opinion which held that a condemnor could in certain circumstances, enter private property in anticipation of an exercise of eminent domain, effect a taking, and not have to adhere to all of California’s eminent domain procedures. Except a jury trial, that is. The court “saved” the precondemnation entry statute by rewriting it…

Continue Reading Property Reserve Remand: You Get Discovery During Precondemnation Entry Proceedings

Here’s one we’ve been waiting for.

In this post (“Sorry Not Sorry? Connecticut Supreme Court Has A Chance To Make Amends For Kelo“), we  previewed the arguments and briefs in a case in which the court was considering whether the Transportation Commissioner’s power under Connecticut law to take “land, buildings, equipment or facilities” includes bus companies’ exclusive state-granted rights to operate bus routes. The bus companies have what amounts to a monopoly under state-granted certificates of public convenience.

In Dattco, Inc. v. Comm’r of Transportation, No. SC19558 (Dec. 27, 2016), the court held that no, the power to take facilities does not include the power to take bus franchises. We recognized in our preview post that this was not a chance for the court to wholly make amends for its Kelo decision because the issues presented are obviously different. But even with that caveat firmly in mind, this…

Continue Reading Whaddaya Know, There Are Some Limits To Eminent Domain In Connecticut

Siouxfalls

Here’s South Dakota v. JB Enterprises, Inc., No. 27176 (Dec. 7, 2016), the second in a series of three recent cases decided by the South Dakota Supreme Court involving a highway renovation project by the SD Department of Transportation. (Here’s the first.)

This one involved the DOT’s “quick take” power, and what happens when the state first grabs property — in this case, the right of access — but then partially changes its mind.

The DOT instituted a quick take of the owner’s access rights. But after consultation with federal highway authorities, the scope of the project changed and the state informed the property owner, “There is a very real chance that we won’t need any easements or access rights at all from your clients.” Slip op. at 4. 

Sure enough, that’s what happened, and the DOT informed the property owner that it wouldn’t be taking…

Continue Reading South Dakota Takings Trilogy, Part II: You Quick Take It, You Bought It – Standing Down Doesn’t Obviate The Need For Compensation