Archive | Recent cases

The Supreme Court rejects a property owner’s regulatory taking claim

The Supreme Court of the United Sates rejected a property owner’s regulatory taking claim in Murr v Wisconsin, 582 U.S. ____ [2017]. The claim alleged that a Wisconsin law deprived the owner of all or practically all of the use of one of two adjacent lots because the lot could not be sold or developed separately under the Wisconsin law. The Court applied a multi-part test to identify the relevant parcel for the regulatory taking inquiry. It concluded that the two lots should be evaluated as a single parcel, and… read more

Posted in Inverse Condemnation, Recent cases
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SUPREMACY CLAUSE? WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING SUPREMACY CLAUSE!

On December 7, 2016, the Appellate Division, Second Department handed down Monroe Equities, LLC v State of New York, 2016 NY Slip Op 08206.  The decision affirmed the dismissal of a claim for damages based on the contention that the application of watershed regulations precluding the right to install a septic system constituted a per se taking under Lucas v South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 US 1003, requiring compensation under the Takings Clause of the United States Constitution because claimant was deprived of all economically beneficial use of its property…. read more

Posted in Recent cases, Regulatory Taking
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A Perfect Example of The Highest And Best Use Concept

On September 21, 2016, New York’s Appellate Division, Second Department, handed down Matter of 730 Equity Corp. v New York State Urban Development Corp., __ AD3d ___, 2016 NY Slip Op 06086 (2d Dep’t 2016). If there was an eminent domain case book, this decision would be included as an example of establishing a highest and best use in a condemnation. The claim involved a one-half acre parcel of vacant land on Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York.  The land was under a long term triple net lease to a major… read more

Posted in Highest and Best Use, Recent cases, Zoning
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Regulatory Taking and Inverse Condemnation: Taxi Medallions and Wetland Building Permits

In two separate decisions on August 15, 2016, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York rejected regulatory taking and inverse condemnation claims. The first decision is about the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission’s (“TLC”) commitment to “adopt regulations requiring that half of the city’s more than 13,000 yellow cabs be accessible to people with disabilities within six years.”  Singh v. Joshi, 152 F. Supp. 3d 112 (E.D.N.Y. 2016). The plaintiffs are three individual TLC medallion holders who argued that, among other things, the… read more

Posted in Eminent Domain, Inverse Condemnation, Recent cases, Regulatory Taking, Wetlands
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Eminent Domain Railway Corridor Valuation: New York Appellate Court Holds State Liable for $67,000,000 in Just Compensation

In a ground-breaking New York eminent domain case where the State of New York took almost seven acres of CSX Transportation, Inc.’s railroad and railway property in order to widen the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the Woodside and Jackson Heights areas of Queens, New York City, and then vigorously argued that CSX suffered no damage and should not even be awarded anything as just compensation, the New York State Appellate Division, Second Department, on July 27, 2016, in its second time ruling on this case, held that the State was completely… read more

Posted in Eminent Domain, Recent cases
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