We don’t often post trial court decisions, but this recent ruling from an Idaho trial court awarding a property owner approximately $400,000 in fees and costs was a good read, and we’d like to share it with you all.
This is a ruling issued after a trial to determine just compensation for the partial taking of property for road improvements. The jury awarded approximately $146,000 to the property owner. There’s a lot of detail in the order, and we suggest you read the entire thing. But what grabbed us was the way the judge treated property rights, starting on page 11 of the order.
Noting that “the Court’s analysis is rooted in the Constitution and this country’s long history of jealously protecting individual property rights,” (now there’s something you don’t hear from courts, much less trial courts, these days), the order concluded that the property owner was the “prevailing party,” and that the condemnor did not make a reasonable offer early in the litigation. Touching on John Adams, George Washington, John Locke, and even Blackstone, the court concluded that the amounts requested by the property owner were reasonable, and that the court was not bound by the fact that the owner’s lawyer did the case on a contingency fee.
A good one for all you fans of history, as well as those preparing fee motions.
Final thoughts: this trial court order is a good tonic for those of us who may be used to trial judges not being all that familiar with eminent domain cases and principles, and property rights in general. Our pet peeve is trial judges who refer to (defendant) property owners as “the plaintiffs” (they are used to the party who is asking for money being the plaintiff, we suppose), when they are decidedly defendants. We also get chapped when property owners get treated like they have done something wrong, or are doing something wrong when they insist that the condemnor follow eminent domain procedures strictly, or simply disagree with the condemnor’s view of just compensation and demand more.
So we ask those of you who represent property owners in eminent domain cases: what are your pet peeves?