Forward Biased (Less-than-current Events)

Eminently just

A few days ago I mentioned three eminent domain cases, in which the City of Greenville, SC was forcing three local landowners to sell their property in what seems to me to be clear cases of eminent domain abuse.

One of these cases strikes just a little closer to home, since I actually know the guy involved.  (Deep breath, long digression.)  I was somewhat of a guitarist as a teenager, and I had formed a partnership with a drummer who wrote song lyrics, so we fancied ourselves a songwriting team.

He also frequently got together to play with other local guys, most of whom could play a lot better than me.  One of them was a guy who figures prominently in this story.  I went over to his house myself once, to jam, and I can credit him with somehow waking up my "heavy metal side," which, although it is but a very small part of my overall musical personality (the closest I get to listening to real metal nowadays is Led Zeppelin), I can say that I actually wrote and recorded one heavy netal number thanks to this guy.

For what it's worth.

(End digression.)  Anyway, so a few years ago his name pops up in the news because the city has condemned a building that his family has owned for 50 years, in which he has a music store.  Without going into all the sordid details, this is a case where the city clearly condemned the building, not to protect its citizens from unsafe conditions, but because the city wanted the land for its own development purposes, and when the developers approached him earlier, he didn't want to sell.  Not at any price.

Enter the city.  We wants your land, we takes your land, like it or not.

Anyway, in recent weeks he has been one of three eminent domain cases in which the parties agreed to let juries decide how much the city would have to pay and the "sellers" would have to accept, and in each case, the jury decided to make the city pay through the proberbial nostrils.  Four times as much as any appraiser said it was worth.

Now, normally I despise escessive jury awards, but not here.  These people didn't want to sell, period.  They were being forced into it, and not for Constitutional purposes of "public use."  This fact alone should at least double the price paid for anything, and quadrupling it isn't unreasonable.

A jury ordered the City of Greenville on Wednesday to pay a total of $2.8 million to two South Main Street property owners whose buildings were taken by eminent domain, more than the owners had testified they were worth.

Billy Mitchell, who owned a downtown building the city condemned, was awarded $1.825 million.

Mitchell had said in court he thought the 1910 brick building his family had owned for about 50 years was worth $1.7 million, nearly four times the value his appraiser put on it.

The jury awarded $975,000 to Mitchell's downtown neighbor, Jeanette Surratt, who also had owned her building for about 50 years. Surratt had testified her building was worth about $850,000, nearly four times what her appraiser had said.

Greenville Mayor Knox White said the city and the landowners had agreed to take the matter to court to let a jury decide the value, and that's what happened.

"They've spoken," White said.

But White said the city must evaluate whether it will appeal.

...A judge in another trial said the city's taking was proper.

But Mitchell called his lengthy legal fight a principled stand against what he still thinks was an improper use of eminent domain.

"It was never about the money, from the beginning," Mitchell said. "Some things are just not for sale. They mean too much to you. You just cannot put a price on it."

Mitchell said the jury probably felt that way, too.

"This is America, after all," he said. "When one of your most basic freedoms of land ownership is under threat, no one can rest easy."

...Pat Paschal, an attorney for the landowners, said juries in eminent domain cases tend to identify with the landowners. "Any time you favor any citizen over another, you gotta expect jury decisions like this," Paschal said.

In his closing arguments, Paschal said the most important consideration is how the property was taken. He said when Mitchell and Surratt wouldn't sell the land to RiverPlace developers, the developers partnered with the city to take them.

"You be the judge of what this taking was for," Paschal said.

Be careful what you wish for...

...or what you demand.

Irony can be quite delicious at times.

No, I'm not talking about revenge, just the sort of irony that occurs when someone unexpectedly gets what they deserve.  You see, it seems that my beloved hometown of Greenville recently forced three property owners to sell three prime tracts of land to the city.  One of these, in particular, had been appraised by the city for $733,000, which is what they planned to pay.  The owner had it appraised for $1.29 million, although he himself considered it to be worth #2.8 million.  The case went to a local jury who awarded the owner $2.6 million.  Guess what?  The city doesn't have that kind of money--and this is only the first of three tracts of land they forced the owners to sell to them.

Pardon me whilst I chuckle.

Via Ralph Bristol:

"The Supreme Court made it clear that it will not stand in the way when cities and counties want to force you to sell your property for any purpose the municipality determines to be in the "public interest" even though the Constitution uses the phrase "public use."

Juries, on the other hand, have the power to make the municipality pay a dear price for grabbing land. This jury did just that. Good for them. The Supreme Court made it clear that states could place further restrictions on eminent domain powers if they so choose. Our state and many others are passing legislation to do just that. The Greenville jury beat lawmakers to the punch."

This ruling could easily do much more than any law to curb this kind of abuse.

For the record, no, I don't consider this to be an excessive award.  This is prime land, and it's entirely possible that an investor could have come along and offered the owner far, far more than the $2.8 million he was asking.  Who's to say?

Trouble is, the market wasn't allowed to set the price.  The city wrested the land out of the hands of its owner, and one thing's for darn sure:  the person who can force you to sell cannot be allowed to set the price.  The jury did that, and the city got quite the rude awakening.

When local governments get the message that they might be required to pay much more than they planned for a tract of land, maybe they'll be a bit less eager to abuse their power to force the owner to sell.

(Hat tip to Ralph Bristol.  And thanks to Greyhawk for the Open Post!)

Eminent domain update: now they just steal land

I don't know if I would have believed it fully had I not seen it myself.

The fallout from the infamous Kelo v. New London SCOTUS decision has reached New Jersey, and it's going to make you angry.  Take one of those little yellow pills the doctor gave you last year before you read this. 

Huh?  What do you mean, you already took them all?!?  What are you, some kind of drug-crazed addi—um, well, ok.  (Sigh) Here, have one of mine.  You're gonna need it.

(Steel Turman told me about this in a comment, the blackguard.  I always get this stuff second-hand, and I paid my dues to the Hot Tips Union and everything.  I think Steel's got something on them, and they just want to keep him hushed up about it.)

Ok, ok, sorry.  I'm just avoiding the point, so here it is.

Carol Segal has a problem: He wants to build townhouses on the six acres of land he owns in New Jersey's Union Township and has contracted with a developer to build 100 townhouses there.

But the township government wants to develop the property themselves, and - incredibly - they have voted to take his land through the eminent domain process and let a local developer with political connections do the job.

That's right, it seems really to be that simple.  A 65-year-old retiree, who spent the last ten years acquiring this land for about $1.5 million, has been discussing these plans with township officials for five years.  They knew what he wanted to do.

Trouble is, he didn't want to use the developer that the township committee wanted him to use, so he told them so.

At that point, the five-member township committee simply said "screw you," voted unanimously to seize Segal's land, and proceeded to appoint their own anointed developer, AMJM Development.

I wouldn't have believed this had I been standing before the committee myself, but then I'm just that way.  Now these people scumbags politicians think they can just steal land from you and award the plum jobs to their political cronies or whoever gives them the biggest kickbacks.

And you know what?  They can.

I wonder how much they're getting from AMJM?  Couple hundred thousand each?  Free home improvements?  Free homes?

And it doesn't seem to matter that an overwhelming majority of New Jerseyans think this is wrong.  They don't vote for the Union Township committee members.  Shoot, 40% of NJ residents polled didn't even know what eminent domain is.  Ignorance is bliss, I guess—until they come after your home, or land, or something.  Whatever they want, evidently. 

And Union Township is hardly the first NJ locality to abuse their power of eminent domain.  The towns of Long Branch, Asbury Park and Neptune are cited in the first story linked above as having at least made plans to take private land for development purposes.

The Kelo decision has given hungry politicians a free meal ticket, and they're chowing down.  At least in the short run, it may be up to local voters to stop them.