Just Compensation | Appraisal

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The Texas Supreme Court has agreed to review Texas v. Clear Channel Outdoor, Inc., a decision in which the Court of Appeals held that the owner of billboards was entitled to compensation when the land on which the billboards were located was condemned.  

Texas needed to widen the freeway, and condemned the land on which the billboards were located. It refused to pay just compensation on the grounds that the billboards were personal property and not “realty,” and thus the owner could simply move them. The State issued a removal order. In response, the owner filed an inverse condemnation action to recover just compensation for the billboard takings.

The court concluded the billboards are not moveable property, but are fixed to the ground, and that the state should have condemned and paid for them. It also overruled the state’s objection to the method of determining just compensation, which …

Continue Reading Texas Supreme Court To Consider: Are Billboards Movable Property?

Check this out, an opinion from the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court in a tax assessment case, Jacobowitz v. Bd of Assessors, Town of Cornwall, No. D39807 (July 30, 2014. The court held that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on warrantless searches and seizures means that a property owner did not have to let the Town’s appraiser into her home to “conduct an interior appraisal inspection” related to her property tax assessment. Slip op. at 1.

It’s a quick read, so we won’t spell it all out in detail, just focus on a couple of the best points. The court held that it is the government’s burden to show entitlement to entry of a home, and not the property owner’s burden to show why it should not. And the property owner’s challenge to the tax assessment did not waive her rights:

Contrary to the Town respondents’ contention…

Continue Reading NY App Div: Town Needs A Warrant For Inspection Related To Property Valuation

Here’s an interesting one from the Georgia Supreme Court. In Dillard Land Investments, LLC v. Fulton County, No. S13G1582 (July 11, 2014), the court held that a condemning agency could not voluntarily dismiss an eminent domain action, after a special master has entered a just compensation award but before the agency has paid the award into the court.

Georgia eminent domain can take one of three tracks. There’s the “assessors method,” the quick take, and the “special master method.” The Dillard case involved the latter, under which the court appoints a master to quickly hold a hearing, after which the master determines the just compensation owed the property owners and files her award with the court. Anyone dissatisfied with the award may appeal for a de novo jury trial. If no appeal is filed, the court enters a judgment. The issue in the case was whether the condemnor could…

Continue Reading Georgia: No “Condemnor’s Remorse” After Special Master Determines Just Comp

Here’s what caught our attention today:

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Continue Reading Friday Round-Up: Eminent Domain, Cal Food Fight Ends (Maybe), Midwest Flooding

Like a visiting relative who won’t go home, the idea to seize underwater-but-performing mortgages is still hanging on. The llatest chapter is brought to us by way of our New York colleague Mike Rikon, who writes:

At a press conference on the steps of City Hall, City Council members and housing advocacy groups called on the Mayor to help homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure. Such help would come in the form of using eminent domain to “buy back mortgages where homeowners owe more than their houses are worth.”

According to a CBS report on June 25, 2014, “under the proposed plan, City government would purchase the mortgages from banks and refinance them to match the home’s value to prevent foreclosure.” 

Mike notes that nearly two years ago (and several times since), we suggested that this plan was not clearly legal, and even if it were, was not…

Continue Reading Farpotshket Alert: Plan To Take Mortgages By Eminent Domain Is Back

Update: Here’s a story on the case from the Sacramento Bee (“State Supreme Court to rule in Delta property-rights case“). See also “Property Reserve on Hold: Supreme Court to Review Eminent Domain Right of Entry Statutes” from Brad Kuhn at the California Eminent Domain Law Report.

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Thanks to our New York colleague Mike Rikon at Bulldozers at Your Doorstep, we’ve come to learn that on June 25, 20154, the California Supreme Court agreed to review a very important eminent domain case, Property Reserve, Inc. v. Superior Court, 224 Cal. App. 4th 828 (2014).

That’s the case in which the Court of Appeal held that California’s entry statute (Cal. Civ. Pro. Code § 1245.010 et seq.), was unconstitutional because it allowed an uncompensated taking. We summarized the Court of Appeal opinion here.

California’s entry statute is much like similar provisions in other…

Continue Reading Cal Supreme Court To Review Eminent Domain Entry Statutes – A Free Pass, Or A Taking?

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ALI-CLE, the good folks who put on the annual programs on Eminent Domain and Land Valuation, and Condemnation 101: How to Prepare and Present an Eminent Domain Case, have announced the dates and venue for the 2015 conferences:

Thursday – Saturday, February 5-7, 2015 

Hotel Nikko, in San Francisco.

Those of you who have attended or taught at these conferences in the past know they are the premier programs on this topic, and feature exciting presentations and excellent faculty.

I’ve been honored to be asked to serve as the Planning Co-chair of the 32d annual Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation program, stepping into the able shoes of Leslie Fields, who retired last year. Joe Waldo is continuing as Planning Co-Chair. Joe and I are currently putting together the agenda and faculty for the program, and we will have more on that soon. Andrew…

Continue Reading Mark Your Calendars: 2015 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation, and Condemnation 101 – February 5-7, 2015, San Francisco

Here are two recent reports on the progress of the Honolulu rail project that should be read in-tandem:

Both stories are partially behind a paywall, but here’s the relevant bits. The first story reports that HART, the city agency created to build and operate the rail is in “another race against time,” this time to acquire the private property it needs to build the rail’s easternmost stretch through Honolulu’s urban core (the tough part, in other words). According to HART, acquisition of access is “our single highest priority.” Which sounds like a big bite: HART Director “Grabauskas and HART staff say they’re aiming to do some 18 months of work negotiating those properties in only six months’ time. They intend to purchase approximately…

Continue Reading Honolulu Rail And The Use Of Eminent Domain

Ah, the speed of the internet: we were all set to write up the recent decision by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Sorenti Bros., Inc. v. Commonwealth, No. SJC-11420 (May 19, 2014), when we noticed that the good folks over at the Massachusetts Land Use Monitor had already done so. 

So if the question of whether a gas station owner can recover compensation by virtue of the Commonwealth eliminating a roundabout and thereby (allegedly) impeding access to the station floats your boat, read all about it here: SJC Reverses Eminent Domain Judgment For Impacts From Sagamore Bridge “Flyover.” 

One note: compare the way the SJC treats the issue with how the Supreme Court of Canada treated a similar (thought not exactly the same) situation. 

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Those of us who have been in the courtroom when the U.S. Supreme Court has conducted its sessions over the past decades will certainly recall the fairly tall guy in the fancy suit guiding the lawyers, press, and audience members where to sit, what to do, and the like. That was the Clerk of the Court, William Suter, who recently retired from the job after a number of years doing it.

He’s now a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, and has authored this short piece, “Executive Power on Steroids.” where he posits that “[i]n four recent Supreme Court cases, the Obama administration takes a crabbed view of individual rights.” Two of the four cases Gen. Suter writes about (see, he’s also a retired U.S. Army Major General) are decisions with which we are familiar, Sackett and Arkansas Game and Fish:

What do these cases have in common?

Continue Reading Former Clerk Of The Supreme Court: Govt “Bullying” And “Strong-Arming” Property Owners