Tony Mauro, writing for Legal Times, reports today that "Major Land Use Case Lands on Supreme Court's Doorstep." Some quotes:
A case that raises what property rights advocates say may be the most important land use issue in decades goes before the Supreme Court at its private conference today.Earlier Indiana Law Blog entries citing Poletown may be found by typing "Poletown" in the search box in the right column. Posted by Marcia Oddi at September 27, 2004 10:48 AMAt issue in Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut, No. 04-108, is whether governments, under their eminent domain power, may condemn property for the benefit of private developers rather than for such traditional public uses as roads or parks. The Court will announce soon after the conference whether it will review the case. * * *
[Dana Berliner, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which petitioned the Court in the case] responds that Supreme Court review is needed to end the "chaos" in lower courts over what public use means. "It's time," she says.
One recent decision in Michigan reached an opposite conclusion from the Connecticut ruling at issue in Kelo. The Michigan Supreme Court in July reversed its controversial 1981 ruling in Poletown Neighborhood Council v. City of Detroit, which allowed Detroit to condemn hundreds of properties for the benefit of General Motors. The Michigan court said it was rejecting the view that "a private entity's pursuit of profit was a 'public use' for constitutional takings purposes simply because one entity's profit maximization contributed to the health of the general economy."
An amicus brief filed to support Kelo also argues that the expansion of eminent domain has given unfair advantage to rich and powerful interests over poorer property owners.
"Only this court can restore the 'public use' clause as an effective constitutional limit on the abuse of government power," writes James Burling of the Pacific Legal Foundation.
Joining in the brief were George Mason University economists James Buchanan, a 1986 Nobel Prize winner, and Gordon Tullock.