OCA Blog

Best Lawyers, the oldest peer-review publication in the legal profession, has named 26 Owners’ Counsel of America members in its 27th Edition for 2021 in recognition of their Eminent Domain and Condemnation expertise and practices. The list includes George Autry (North Carolina), Stephanie Autry (North Carolina), Keith Babcock (South Carolina), Joshua Baker (Virginia), Michael Berger (California), Dana Berliner (Institute for Justice), William Blake (Nebraska), Amy Brigham Boulris (Florida), Andrew...

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Developer Bridge Aina Le‘a, LLC, purchased a large tract of land in Hawaii  to build hundreds of new homes. Before the company ever got the chance, however, the Hawaii Land Use Commission re‐​designated the land for agricultural use, effectively preventing any  residential development from occurring. Bridge Aina Le‘a sued asserting its constitutional right against an uncompensated taking of its’ property. After an eight day trial, a jury found the...

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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial uncertainty for businesses. As of March 24, 2020, the President has declared an emergency under the Stafford Act and the Minnesota Governor has declared a peacetime emergency. Given the situation, the government may order businesses to close or take goods, equipment and space that may be needed for the government’s response. While the government has the power to take such extraordinary actions, that...

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Although the eminent domain power is an attribute of the sovereign, there are instances in which a private licensee is delegated the power for the acquisition of easements necessary to establish a lineal corridor. For the purposes of this article, our examination of the jurisprudence associated with the acquisition of lineal corridor rights takes place in the “laboratory” of the federal district courts in Florida. For it is there...

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Landowners, Lee and Ryan Thomas, who were represented by Andrew Brigham, OCA’s Florida member, recently defeated Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC when the Eleventh Circuit affirmed their two jury verdicts totaling over $1.3 million for easement rights for which the pipeline company earlier argued compensation should only be $39,700. Sabal Trail’s appeal sought to overturn the jury verdicts on the basis that the jurors improperly relied on the testimonies of...

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OCA recently filed an Amicus Brief on behalf of  Christus Church in the state of Wisconsin. The brief addresses important issues arising out of a pre-litigation “jurisdictional” offer made to the Church by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation that contained compensation for severance damages to the Church’s remaining property caused by highway proximity, even though the Department’s underlying appraisal found that there were no severance damages. OCA’s Amicus Brief...

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Mark Meierhenry, former South Dakota Attorney General and Owners’ Counsel of America member for many years passed away recently. While we knew Mark as a talented lawyer, a fierce defender of private property rights and a great member of our organization, his obituary revealed many other wonderful dimensions to his personality and background. Who knew for instance that he had argued six times before the U.S. Supreme Court? Or...

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OCA joined the Pacific Legal Foundation recently in filing an Amicus Brief in a case before the Virginia Supreme Court entitled Johnson v. City of Suffolk. This case involves a claim by Virginia oystermen that the City of Suffolk and a Sanitation District knowingly operated a sewage and stormwater system in such a way as to discharge wastewater into the Nansemond River, invading oyster beds being leased by the...

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On May 1, 2020 the N.C. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the just compensation judgement in Chappell v. N.C. Dep’t of Transportation, No. 51PA19-1 (May 1, 2020). Chappell is the follow up to the N.C. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Kirby v. North Carolina Dep’t of Transportation, No 56PA14-2 (June 10, 2016), in which the court held that the “Map Act,” a statute by which NCDOT designated vast swaths of...

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After being chased by police for stealing clothing from a Walmart, a man barricaded himself in a house in Greenwood Village, Colorado. Over a 19 hour period, using explosives and a battering ram attached to an armored personnel carrier, the local police department’s SWAT team intentionally destroyed the landowner’s house to force the fugitive to surrender. Afterwards, they offered the family $5,000 “to help with temporary living expenses.” The family sued,...

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