Law Commons^™

Kelo's Moral Failure, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Eminent Domain: Judicial And Legislative Responses To Kelo, Alan Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

It has been almost a year and a half since the Supreme Court ruled in Kelo v. City of New London, 125 S. Ct. 2655 (2005), that the federal Constitution does not bar government from using eminent domain for economic development purposes. That ruling precipitated an unprecedented negative reaction in state legislatures. 1 Now, Ohio has delivered the first post-Kelo state supreme court decision to address the constitutionality of eminent domain. On July 26, in City of Norwood v. Horney, 2006 WL 2096001, a unanimous Ohio Supreme Court rejected the arguments of the majority in Kelo and emphatically stated that …

Eminent Domain Reform In Missouri: A Legislative Memoir, Dale A. Whitman

Faculty Publications

The Missouri General Assembly, like a number of other state legislatures, undertook to reform its statutes relating to eminent domain during the 2006 legislative session. This article is the story of that effort and an analysis of the result. I write from a personal perspective. I was fortunate to have been personally involved in many of the decisions that were made as the bill, House Bill 1944, made its was through the legislative process. This opportunity was, I think, fairly unusual for a law professor; in thirty-seven years of teaching property law, I had never previously been so closely engaged …

Slides: Sea Level Rise: Let The Lawsuits Begin!, John P. Casey

Climate Change and the Future of the American West: Exploring the Legal and Policy Dimensions (Summer Conference, June 7-9)

Presenter: John P. Casey, Land Use Attorney, Robinson & Cole, Hartford, CT.

1 page and 75 slides.

Using the changing nature of coastal shorelines as a basis for his presentation, Mr. Casey will discuss the challenges of protecting a landowner's interest in preserving her land, while at the same time protecting the environment and respecting the natural changes that are bound to occur over time. Mr. Casey will focus on the how the application of laws designed to protect the environment - especially in cases where changes take place over time to alter the physical characteristics of the land - …

Property Metaphors And Kelo V. New London: Two Views Of The Castle, Eduardo M. Peñalver

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Green Costs Of Kelo: Economic Development Takings And Environmental Protection, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

This Article is the first academic paper to systematically consider the environmental impact of the Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London and of economic development condemnations more generally. Kelo upheld economic development takings - condemnations that transfer property from one private owner to another solely on the ground that doing so might improve the local economy or increase tax revenue. The decision stands in sharp contrast to the Michigan Supreme Court's ruling in County of Wayne v. Hathcock, which forbade the use of eminent domain for economic development.

Part I briefly explains the rationales of the …

Eminent Domain Legislation Post-Kelo: A State Of The States, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

In Kelo v. City of New London, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of eminent domain for economic development is a permissible“public use” under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The decision proved controversial, as many feared that it would benefit large corporations at the expense of individual homeowners and local communities. Shortly thereafter, numerous states introduced legislation limiting the use of eminent domain.This article surveys those state initiatives that have been signed into law following the Court’s decision in Kelo.

The "Public Use" Requirement In Eminent Domain Law: A Rationale Based On Secret Purchases And Private Influence, Daniel B. Kelly

Journal Articles

This Article provides a rationale for understanding and interpreting the public use requirement within eminent domain law. The rationale is based on two factors. First, while the government often needs the power of eminent domain to avoid the problem of strategic holdout, private parties are generally able to purchase property through secret buying agents. The availability of these undisclosed agents makes the use of eminent domain for private parties unnecessary and indeed undesirable. The government, however, is ordinarily unable to make secret purchases because its plans are subject to democratic deliberation and thus publicly known in advance. Second, while the …

The Neglected Political Economy Of Eminent Domain, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

This Article challenges a foundational assumption about eminent domain - namely, that owners are systematically undercompensated because they receive only fair market value for their property. The Article shows that, in fact, scholars have overstated the undercompensation problem because they have focused on the compensation required by the Constitution, rather than on the actual mechanics of eminent domain. The Article examines three ways that Takers (i.e., non-judicial actors in the eminent domain process) minimize undercompensation. First, Takers may avoid taking high-subjective-value properties. Second, Takers frequently must pay more compensation in the form of relocation assistance. Third, Takers and property owners …

Six Myths About Kelo: Kelo V. City Of New London, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Kelo v. City of New London, 125 S. Ct. 2655 (2005), is unique in the modem annals of law in terms of the negative response it has evoked. The initial reaction by lawyers familiar with the case was one of lack of surprise. Within days, however, Internet bloggers, television commentators, and neighbors talking over backyard fences decided that Keio was an outrage. Even Justice Stevens sought to distance himself from his own majority opinion, declaring in a speech to a bar association that he thought the outcome was "unwise," and that he would not have supported it if he were …

Why Kelo Is Not Good News For Local Planners And Developers, Daniel H. Cole

Articles by Maurer Faculty

When the Supreme Court announced its 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, few legal scholars were surprised at the outcome, which was premised on precedents extending back to the middle of the 19th century. Legal scholars were surprised, however, by the intense political reaction to Kelo (fueled substantially by Justice O'Connor's hyperbolic dissent), as property-rights advocates, legislators (at all levels of government), and media pundits assailed the ruling as a death knell for private property rights in America.

Kelo's combination of relative legal insignificance and high political salience makes it an interesting case study in cross-institutional dynamics, …

Kelo: One Year Later, Alan C. Weinstein

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

June of 2006 marked the first anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, making this a good time to analyze the past year's flurry of activity and assess what it means for local governments. As of mid-May of 2006, more than forty states were considering legislation in reaction to the Kelo ruling, and fifteen have already enacted such legislation.

"We Shall Not Be Moved": Urban Communities, Eminent Domain And The Socioeconomics Of Just Compensation, James J. Kelly

Journal Articles

If eminent domain is to serve true community development, statutory reforms must limit its propensity to abuse while still preserving its effectiveness. The first part of this article offers a normative legal theory of eminent domain as constrained by both the availability of alternative means of achieving public objectives and the inability of some condemnees to be made whole by cash compensation. The consideration of the land needs of both the condemnor and the condemnee is crucial to the respective evaluations of public use and just compensation as limitations on eminent domain. In the context of urban redevelopment, the theory …

The Uselessness Of Public Use, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky

All Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court decision of Kelo v. City of New London has been denounced by legal scholars from the entire political spectrum and given rise to numerous legislative proposals to reverse Kelo's deferential interpretation of the Public Use Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and instead, limit the use of eminent domain when taken property is transferred to private hands. In this Essay we argue that the criticisms of Kelo are ill-conceived and misguided. They are based on a narrow analysis of eminent domain that fails to take into account the full panoply of government powers with respect to property. Given …

Private Business As Public Good: Hotel Development And Kelo, Joseph Blocher

Faculty Scholarship

In the summer of 2004, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. announced plans to demolish the all-but-derelict New Haven Coliseum and replace it with a publicly financed redevelopment that would include a 300-room hotel. Critics of the plan immediately objected that the hotel-even if it were completed-was a poor public investment, that there was no demand for such a hotel, and that the money could be better spent elsewhere. Some critics pointed to New Haven's own checkered history of major development projects, especially the failed downtown mall and the famously catastrophic Oak Street redevelopment. As of February 2006, the city …