Be sure to check out this interview with a person we’re proud to call a friend and a colleague, Gideon Kanner, in the most recent edition of Right of Way magazine, a publication of the International Right of Way Association.
“A Fierce Advocate for Just Compensation” is a sitdown with Professor Kanner, and covers a lot of ground, so to speak. The entire piece is worth reading, but here’s what a colleague pointed out as perhaps the best part:
If you represent a property owner in an eminent domain case, particularly an inverse condemnation one, you must understand that your client is persona non grata or the law’s “poor relation,” as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist once said. The California Supreme Court once stated in an opinion that it was its duty to keep condemnation awards down, which is a hell of a hurdle to overcome when your task is to persuade the Justices that your client was undercompensated by the court below. So in those not-so-good ol’ days of the 1960s, when I walked into court, I had my job cut out for me. Sometimes, the hostility emanating from the bench was palpable. As Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit once noted, what property owners in this field often get from the bench is “thinly-disguised contempt.” This is not a line of work for the faint of heart.
