Even though it is a trial court decision, the opinion in Township of Readington v. Solberg Aviation Co., No. HNT-L-486-06 (May 4, 2015), is well worth reading, because we think the judge gets the process for how courts evaluate claims of pretext correct.
We posted about this case a few years ago, after the Appellate Division remanded the case with instructions to the trial court to take an objective view of the Township's claim that the taking of Solberg's airport was to preserve open space, and not, as Solberg claimed, to thwart Solberg's plans to expand its facilities and to allow the Township to take control of the enterprise.
The trial court did so, and after a long bench trial, it concluded:
In fine, an objective scrutiny of the collective testimony of the elected officials involved in the architecture and implementation of the eminent domain ordinance concerning the SHA property reveals a studied attempt to obscure the true purpose of the condemnors in the instant taking. The Court finds this testimony, as a whole, to be un-forthright, evasive, untrustworthy, argumentative, lacking credibility and therefore unworthy of belief. Moreover, the resultant lack of transparency in governmental actions of Readington Township has subverted an open political process thus weakening the protection of all its citizens’ private property rights including the Solberg family. That is to say the condemnation was singularly initiated to secure Township control over airport operations. This objective evidence conclusively establishes that the taking was in direct response to Solberg’s airport development proposal and only ostensibly part of some environmental protection plan dependent upon the condemnation of the subject property. Such behavior undermines the integrity of the municipal government’s stated public purpose behind Ordinance 25-2006 and demonstrates bad faith. Accordingly, the taking is invalid in its entirety.
Slip op. at 31.
The court found particularly troublesome the involvement of a P.R. firm, concluding that its efforts to keep the politicians "on message" to their narrative that the taking was for open space "does not escape the attention of this Court."
At this point CN, sensing public disquiet with the Township’s first time use of eminent domain, devised a different strategy to provide to press and public. Now the emphasis would be a detailed history of the Township’s efforts to preserve open space and farmland dating back to 1978, explaining that the Township had been interested in acquiring the Solberg property for preservation purposes since at least 1999. Officials were now schooled to avoid the contentious eminent domain process and to retreat to a rich history of extraordinary open space preservation. The base tactical dichotomy of this ploy does not escape the serious attention of this Court.
Slip op. at 27. The officials who adopted the resolution of taking were also put on the stand, and the court found many of them unpersuasive. See slip op. at 29 (finding the testimony of the official who "manned the laboring oar" on the taking to be "un-forthright, evasive, and nonresponsive to both counsel and Court and thus dispositively lacking in credibility.").
The court invalidated the taking "in its entirety as a manifest abuse of the power of eminent domain." Slip op. at 54.
More on the case here ("Solberg Airport Prevails in Landmark Eminent Domain Case") and here ("Judge slams Readington's Solberg Airport takeover plan as 'abuse of power'').
Township of Readington v. Solberg Aviation Co., No. HNT-L-468-06 (N.J. Law Div. May 4, 2015)
