Category: Uncategorized

Over the last 40 years, more than 8 million babies have been born through the miracle of in vitro fertilization, creating new love and new families.But when couples split, what happens to the embryos? Is this a property rights issue or someting else? It’s not an easy question to answer. Connecticut would benefit from a law that providesguidance. In the meantime, the Connecticut Supreme Court has that question before...

Sharing is caring!

Recently, several federal courts of appeals have upheld giving immediate possession of property (sometimes called quick take) to a private pipeline condemnor once a district court has ruled in favor of the pipeline that it qualifies to condemn property under 15 U.S.C. § 717f(h). These courts conclude that summary judgment grants a pipeline a “substantive” right, and therefore there’s no reason to not give it possession now by granting a...

Sharing is caring!

Owners’ Counsel of America has elected three accomplished eminent domain attorneys to serve on its Board of Directors for 2019. They are OCA Members Hertha Lund with Lund Law, PLLC in Bozeman, Montana; Casey Pipes with Helmsing, Leach, Herlong, Newman & Rouse, PC in Mobile, Alabama; and Joseph Suntum with Miller, Miller & Canby in Rockville, Maryland. Hertha Lund represents landowners in matters involving eminent domain, property rights, water rights and wind energy development across the state of Montana....

Sharing is caring!

OCA is pleased to announce the selection of Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, II as the Primary OCA Representative for the District of Columbia. Thor Hearne is a partner in the Washington D.C. office of Larson O’Brien LLP. Mr. Hearne has earned a national reputation for his work in complex federal and state litigation, appeals, and class actions, especially matters involving election issues; property rights; and constitutional law. In the specific...

Sharing is caring!

The idiom “hoist with his own petard” is sometimes misconstrued to mean hoisted up. Not so. A petard was a medieval explosive device. To be hoisted with one’s own petard is to be blown up with your own bomb. President Trump is doing precisely that with an emergency declaration to build his wall due to the legal and practical impossibility of acquiring the property rights necessary to build a...

Sharing is caring!

OCA Member Randall Smith’s eight year battle with St. Bernard Parish Port Authority over the taking of his client’s property may be ending soon as a result of the Louisiana Supreme Court’s recent decision to leave in place an appellate court’s ruling that the parish needs to pay an additional $18 million in just compensation and interest. The high court’s 5-2 ruling in effect wraps up an intricate legal battle...

Sharing is caring!

OCA Member Dana Berliner and the Institute for Justice received a great victory for the Birnbaum family recently in CRDA v. Birnbaum. A New Jersey appellate court ruled that the state’s Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) could not use eminent domain for the purpose of seizing private property in order to “bank” it for a possible future use. The appellate court upheld the trial court’s 2016 decision concluding that...

Sharing is caring!

John Hamilton, Owners’ Counsel of America Emeritus Member from the State of Kansas, recently prevailed in the case of Nauheim v. City of Topeka, No. 114271 (Jan. 25, 2019) in convincing the Kansas Supreme Court that a tenant who was displaced when the City of Topeka sought to acquire private property for a drainage project was entitled to relocation benefits even though the City did not have to actually...

Sharing is caring!

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/01/16/trump-eminent-domain-border-wall

Sharing is caring!

Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, litigators, led by partner and OCA Member Edward G. Burg at trial, secured a victory for Hahm International Inc. and Levand Steel & Supply Corp. on Feb. 15 in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California against the United States. The jury awarded $30.3 million in compensation to the owners of 1,000 acres of land in the Mojave Desert, which was taken by eminent...

Sharing is caring!