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Archive | Eminent Domain

March 23, 2017

“We’re Going to Build a Wall and Mexico is Going to Pay for It” – Not So, You are Going to Pay for It.

The immediate construction of a physical wall between Mexico and America was authorized by Presidential Executive Order on January 25, 2017, but there is no provision for funding from Mexico.  The President is asking congress for $4.1 billion through next year to begin construction of a wall, a project that may cost as much as $25 billion, plus annual repairs. A sea to sea barrier would require control of land along 2,000 miles.  This means that much land would have to be acquired by eminent domain.  As part of the… read more

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Posted in Eminent Domain, Gateway Project, Uncategorized, Walls
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December 21, 2016

IF REAL PROPERTY WAS CONDEMNED FOR A PUBLIC PURPOSE, MAY IT BE CONDEMNED AGAIN FOR ANOTHER USE?

Generally, a property presently used for a public purpose may not be condemned.  See New York, L. & W.R. Co. v Union Steam-Boat Co., 99 NY 12 (1885).  Nor may property owned by a higher sovereign be acquired without consent.  This is known as the prior public use doctrine.  As the New York State Court of Appeals has noted, “[t]o defeat the attainment of an important public purpose to which lands have already been subjected, the legislative intent must unequivocally appear.”  In re City of Buffalo, 68 NY 167, 175… read more

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Posted in Condemnation Procedures, Eminent Domain
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December 8, 2016

WHEN A JUDGE GETS IT ABSOLUTELY RIGHT: Matter of Village of Haverstraw (AAA Electricians, Inc.)

Like many condemnation proceedings by small towns and villages, the Village of Haverstraw taking of some 19 acres owned by our client AAA Electricians, Inc. represented a severe example of eminent domain abuse. The vacant land was taken for the construction of luxury condominiums on the Hudson River.  By Decision and Order dated August 5, 2016, the Honorable Bruce E. Tolbert awarded the claimant $1,190,582 as an additional allowance pursuant to Section 701 of New York’s Eminent Domain Procedure Law. The case was litigated over a thirteen year period of… read more

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Posted in Additional Allowances, Eminent Domain
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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

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Posted in Eminent Domain, Energy, Energy Use
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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

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Posted in Cases of First Impression, Eminent Domain, Future of the law
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