Here at invesecondemnation.com, we do our best to bring you timely decisons on cases of interest from around the nation and the world. But today we've outdone ourselves, because we have an opinion from the Connecticut Court of Appeals, issued ... next week: Dep't of Transportation v. Cheriha, LLC, No. 155AP144 (Jan. 27, 2015).
The case involved the condemnation of a parcel in New Britain at the intersection of Beaver and Washington Streets shown above in the "after" condition. The trial court did not allow the property owner to introduce the testimony of one Dr. Sheik Ahmed, who was prepared to testify that 17 months before the taking he had submitted a letter of intent to buy the parcel for a price even in excess of the property owner's appraiser's trial valuation. The court of appeals held that it was proper to exclude Dr. Ahmed's testimony as it was in the nature of expert valuation evidence:
The defendant’s argument is belied by the record in this case, which discloses that the defendant sought to introduce Ahmed’s testimony regarding his preliminary offer as expressed in the letter of intent on the basis that it was ‘‘indicative of the fair market value’’ of the property. In addition, in its offer of proof, the defendant suggested that Ahmed should be permitted to testify because of his extensive background in the buying and selling of commercial properties. In light of this, it is clear that although the defendant identified Ahmed as a fact witness, it predicated the usefulness of his testimony on his asserted ability to assess the value of the property as an expert. Accordingly, it was not an abuse of discretion for the court to preclude his testimony on the basis that he lacked the expert qualifications to do so.Slip op. at 7.
Of course, we're being cheeky about the "back to the future" headline, since the date of the opinion is merely the "officially released" date when it will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal. But we also found the photos below a bit of "time travel" fun. When poking around Google Maps/Street View for what the parcel looks like, we found that if we "drove" up Beaver Street, the property is shown in the "before" condition with the "free standing masonry building, approximately 2032 square feet in size, that included an attached, three bay automotive repair garage with supporting offices and a sales area."
"Driving" to the intersection with Washington Street, however, the Street View changed to the after condition, the building disappeared, and the DOT's construction is shown.
Dep't of Transportation v. Cheriha, LLC, No. 155AP144 (Conn. App. Jan. 27, 2015)
