Early next month, the California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases which we’ve been closely following:
- Tuesday, May 3, 2016, 9:00 am – Property Reserve, Inc. v. Superior Court, No. S217738. The court is considering whether California’s “entry statute” which allows a condemning agency to enter property for testing and inspection exempted the Department of Water Resources from adhering to the protections in the eminent domain code when the government physically invades property. We filed an amicus brief in that case arguing that “any non-trivial physical invasion of private property is a per se taking requiring just compensation and adherence to eminent domain procedures. The intrusions sought by DWR and ordered by the Superior Court cannot be dismissed as mere “entries.” This is not only a long-standing tenet of California constitutional law (see Jacobsen, supra, 192 Cal. at 329), it is a baseline Fifth Amendment principle, and thus a federal floor below which state law may not fall.” Definitely a case to watch.
- Thursday, May 5, 2016, 9:00 am – City of Perris v. Stemper, S213468. In this case, the Court of Appeal held that Nollan/Dolan issues impacting the possible uses of property is an issue for the jury to decide in the course determining valuation in eminent domain. Briefs in that case are posted here.
And if this report is correct, these may be the first arguments broadcast live from the court’s San Francisco courtroom. Stay tuned (both literally and figuratively) for more on that.
Supreme Court of California Oral Argument Calendar San Francisco Session May 3, 4, and 5, 2016