Navigation

Author Archive | Michael Rikon

September 13, 2016

How Do You Stop a Pipeline? Answer: Get POTUS to Help.

An estimated 8,000 people from 150 different Native American tribes in the U.S. and Canada have come together to stop the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline.  They have been joined by many more people concerned by the environmental threat and the abuse of eminent domain. The 1,172 mile long pipeline has an estimated cost of $3.7 billion and will pump nearly a half a million gallons of light crude from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota across South Dakota and Iowa to its terminus in Pakota, Illinois. The Standing Rock Sioux,… read more

By
Posted in Eminent Domain, Energy, Energy Use
Read more > 0

August 30, 2016

Landowners May Appeal To The Judiciary If Property Is Designated As Wetlands Subject To Federal Jurisdiction

This blog follows an article Michael Rikon wrote which was published in the New York Law Journal on August 26, 2016. Wetlands are areas saturated by surface or ground water sufficient to support distinctive vegetation adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.  The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation regulates two main types of wetlands, tidal wetlands along Long Island, New York City and up the Hudson River, and freshwater wetlands found on river and lake flood plains across the State. But wetlands may also be regulated by the… read more

By
Posted in Uncategorized, US Supreme Court cases, Wetlands
Read more > 0

August 23, 2016

The Right to a Jury

Professor Gideon Kanner, once again, focused the law profession’s attention to the right to a jury in an eminent domain trial.  In an article published on August 19, 2016, in the Daily Journal, a California legal publication, Professor Kanner wrote, “Our eminent right to a jury….”  In his article, Kanner, one of America’s leading eminent domain scholars, states that the notion that there should be trial by the court and not a jury because “no such jury right existed in England and the colonies in 1791” is a myth.  The… read more

By
Posted in Cases of First Impression, Eminent Domain, Future of the law
Read more > 0

August 18, 2016

Regulatory Taking and Inverse Condemnation: Taxi Medallions and Wetland Building Permits

In two separate decisions on August 15, 2016, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York rejected regulatory taking and inverse condemnation claims. The first decision is about the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission’s (“TLC”) commitment to “adopt regulations requiring that half of the city’s more than 13,000 yellow cabs be accessible to people with disabilities within six years.”  Singh v. Joshi, 152 F. Supp. 3d 112 (E.D.N.Y. 2016). The plaintiffs are three individual TLC medallion holders who argued that, among other things, the… read more

By
Posted in Eminent Domain, Inverse Condemnation, Recent cases, Regulatory Taking, Wetlands
Read more > 0

August 11, 2016

Grand Central Terminal Air Rights Takings Litigation Settled

The Grand Central Terminal air rights takings litigation was settled yesterday.  We reviewed this litigation in our blog on June 8, 2016, available here: https://eminent-domain-blog.com/update-grand-central-terminal-air-rights-takings-litigation/ This settlement will allow for the construction of a 1,401-foot-tall building across 42nd Street on Vanderbilt Avenue in Manhattan. Interestingly, the settlement, according to a New York Times article, dated August 10, 2016, is likely because of a change in the ownership of the plaintiff corporation.  The new owners are MSD Capital, a firm controlled by Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Computers, and brothers… read more

By
Posted in Inverse Condemnation, Litigation, Zoning
Read more > 0