California Eminent Domain Report

When the California Supreme Court issued its ruling on Property Reserve v. Superior Court, handing a substantial victory to public agencies, we were given three key takeaways:  (1) the Right of Entry statutes (CCP §1245.010 et seq.) are constitutional, (2) the activities the Department of Water Resources sought to undertake are covered by the broad scope of these statues, and (3) if the language of a statute doesn’t match your planned opinion, you can always reform it to match the claimed legislative intent of the statute.

To that last point, the Court’s opinion included its ...

On February 9, 2017, California Assembly Member Phillip Chen (a Republican from the 55^th district) introduced Assembly Bill 408 (AB 408).  You can find a copy of the bill here.  AB 408 is styled as an act to amend Section 1250.410 of the Code of Civil Procedure relating to eminent domain.  There is very little history available on AB 408 and it appears that the next action is for it to be heard in committee on March 12, 2017.  If AB 408 is ultimately approved in its current form, it would radically change the standards by which courts decide whether or not to award litigation expenses in eminent ...

There has been a lot of news lately concerning President Trump’s desire to build a border wall. Many of the articles focus on the efficacy, costs and practical challenges of building the wall.  But the discussions are also starting to move into our world of eminent domain.  An Op Ed piece in the Washington Post  talks about Donald Trump’s Great Wall of Eminent Domain and mentions that 67 percent of the nearly 2,000 border miles constitute private and state-owned lands. The Daily Beast published an article called The Great Wall of Trump Would Be the Ultimate Eminent Domain Horror Show ...

Before an eminent domain action is filed, public infrastructure projects involve years of planning, environmental approvals, design, and property negotiations.  During this time, property owners and real estate agents/brokers are often faced with deciding what to disclose about the potential condemnation to prospective tenants when attempting to lease out space.  It is a difficult position to be in, as (i) disclosing too much makes it extraordinarily difficult to find a tenant willing to pay market rents with the looming "cloud" of condemnation, and (ii) disclosing too ...