OCA Blog

Owners’ Counsel of America is saddened to announce that Gideon Kanner, a fierce defender of property rights, who helped to found the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers, has died at the age of 93. While a complete list of Gideon’s professional accomplishments are too extensive to chronicle here, below are but a few highlights from his extraordinary career. After 10 years as a rocket engineer, followed by a stellar...

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Public universities have a long history of expanding campuses in the name of progress and economic growth. But often, these expansions used eminent domain and property seizures to disrupt and diminish thriving Black communities across the country. In the second half of the 20th century, the rapid growth of public universities across Virginia and many other states uprooted hundreds of Black families, hindering them from accumulating wealth in the...

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In honor of lawyer Toby Prince Brigham’s legacy of professionalism and achievement, in 2021 OCA established the Toby Prince Brigham OCA Scholarship to pay for all expenses of a second or third year law student to attend the ALI-CLE Eminent Domain conference and associated OCA events. Next year’s conference will be held from February 1-3 in New Orleans, La. This unique scholarship affords the student the opportunity to learn...

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Owners’ Counsel of America is pleased to announce that OCA Honorary Member Michael Berger, Senior Counsel with the law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, will be honored with the receipt of the Jefferson B. Fordham Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by the American Bar Association (ABA) at its’ 2023 ABA Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado on Friday, August 4, 2023. As one of the top land use and condemnation...

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Join OCA Member and Pacific Legal Foundation lawyer Robert Thomas on August 9th as he moderates a podcast on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 term and the three major property cases decided in favor of property ownership: Tyler v. Hennepin County (government’s keeping the excess value when seizing and selling a home to satisfy a property tax debt is a taking), Wilkins v. United States (is the federal Quiet...

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Owners’ Counsel of America, along with four other national property rights groups recently filed an Amicus Brief challenging the U.S. government’s request to revisit a property owners’ takings claim based on the Trails Act. The groups’ brief noted that several of the court’s rulings dating back two decades established a clear precedent on the matter which the government was clearly seeking to overturn. Established precedent holds that the Trails Act gives rise...

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A North Carolina jury awarded a property owner $5,084,000 earlier this week for the taking of his partially redeveloped hotel. Amar Patel was represented by the Cranfill Sumner LLP attorneys George Autry and Jeremy Hopkins, who are also members of Owners’ Counsel of America. The trial lasted six days with the jury ultimately deliberating for approximately 50 minutes. The department initially offered Mr. Patel $244,825 for the partial taking...

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Geraldine Tyler, age 94, owed Hennepin County $2,300 in unpaid property taxes on her Minnesota condominium. When that small amount ultimately generated $12,700 in fees, the County seized her condo and sold it to pay the taxes and fees. By the time the condo was sold for $40,000, Tyler’s total debt came to $15,000. But the county did not return the excess $25,000 to Tyler. Instead, it pocketed the...

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In his recent article written for the New York Law Journal and entitled ‘Urban Renewal, An Assault on Black Neighborhoods,” OCA member Mike Rikon speaks of  how interstate highways, many of which were built to serve white suburban commuters, “were shoved through black neighborhoods, causing surrounding blight and pollution.” Mr. Rikon says these actions were fueled by the Federal Housing Act of 1949, which authorized cities to use eminent...

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OCA’s Iowa Member, Dan Manning, is now representing several property owners in Cedar Rapids who are losing their homes because of past floods and fears about future flooding in their neighborhood near the riverfront area. Calling the takings “above and beyond” the usual scenario, Dan Manning explained the difficulty his clients faced in finding replacement property. “These are their homes, they’ve been there and they’re very unique in their...

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