When a condemnor is told “no” (or voluntarily drops an eminent domain lawsuit), many jurisdictions require it to pay attorney fees to the parties on the target end of the vs.
Colorado is one of those jurisdictions, and as the Colorado Court of Appeals noted in Mulberry Frontage Metro. Dist. v. Sunstate Equip. Co.
A big thanks to friend and colleague Paul Henry for bringing to our attention this article by Andrew Stuttaford, UFOs and Eminent Domain.
No, it (unfortunately) is not the latest tenure-making scholarly law journal article (but we can dream, can’t we?), but a piece in National Review.
It details a proposal to release
Every law school graduate surely remembers that 1L Contracts case about the two ships named “Peerless” and the doctrine of mutual mistake.
In Marchbanks v. Ice House Ventures, LLC, No. 2022-0047 (June 8, 2023), the Ohio Supreme Court rejected the DOT’s claim that a previously-agreed-upon agreement to settle an eminent domain action did not
Update: someone blinked – between the time we drafted this post and the time is actually posted, we understand that this case settled. But the “spite takings” issue remains of interest, so we’re leaving this post up.
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You already know about the prior public use issue, often arising in government-to-government takings.
As we’ve noted before, we think courts generally don’t like it when they are asked to revisit a dispute that was settled by agreement. Yes, settlement agreements are contracts, and just like every other contract they are subject to enforcement, breach actions, and the like.
But our experience is that courts are not keen
The New York Appellate Division’s opinion in Huntley Power, LLC v. Town of Tonawanda, No. 22-011460 (June 9, 2023), is typically short (6 pages, including a dissent).
The town instituted eminent domain proceedings to take Huntley’s riverfront property, including an electric plant decommissioned in 2016, and water intake structures. The asserted public use is
Before you get too excited by the headline and think this is a Kelo issue, a word of caution: this short one from the Oklahoma Supreme Court is on a really niche topic: private condemnations that permit the private owner of property to institute a private-benefit taking to force a neighbor to sell an interest
At first, the Iowa Supreme Court’s opinion in Juckette v. Iowa Utilities Board, No. 21-1788 (June 16, 2023) looks like a promising read. The issue — is a utility expanding its use of an express road easement to install electric lines a taking? — is one that we’ve been following.
But by the
808 years ago today* on a grassy plain down by the river, the barons convinced bad King John to affix his seal to Magna Carta. Or the Magna Carta. Or Magna Charta. However you want to grammarize it. (And no, he didn’t “sign” it, they didn’t do things like that back then.)
And
Here’s what we’re reading this Tuesday: