Yearly Archives: 2013

The Owners’ Counsel of America is pleased to announce that Manhattan-based condemnation lawyer, Michael Rikon, has been invited to speak at the 10th Annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia, October 17-18, 2013. Mr. Rikon, a partner at Goldstein, Rikon, Rikon & Houghton, P.C. and the New York member of Owners’ Counsel of America, will take part in a round-table discussion regarding the impact of recent U.S. Supreme Court property rights decisions.

An eminent domain battle has been brewing in Longmont, Colorado regarding a proposed $80 million redevelopment plan for Twin Peaks Mall, an indoor shopping mall. The players include the Longmont Urban Renewal Authority (LURA), mall owner NewMark Merrill Mountain States, and Dillard’s, Inc. an upscale national retailer, mall anchor and landowner. Negotiations over the specifics of the redevelopment project began last year between NewMark Merrill and Dillard’s but fizzled in April when the two sides could not find common ground.

Recently, with just two weeks remaining before trial, OCA North Carolina attorney-members George B. Autry, Jr. and Stephanie Hutchins Autry facilitated, on behalf of their landowner client, the settlement of an eminent domain matter pending in Charlotte (Mecklenburg County) with the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT).

Last month, a Louisiana appellate court upheld the 2012 decision of an Orleans Parish jury awarding $9,566,640 million in just compensation to the owners of the former Grand Palace Hotel building at 1732 Canal St. in New Orleans. The jury’s verdict represented more than double the $4.5 million value the state assigned to the property.

The Supreme Court issued its decision today in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Mgmt District, No. 11-1447 (cert. granted Oct. 5, 2012), holding that the “essential nexus” and “rough proportionality” standards established by Nollan and Dolan apply not only to exactions for land as a condition for land use permits but also to the government’s demand for money in exchange for permitting.

OCA wishes to congratulate its 8 member-attorneys who have been recognized as 2013 “Lawyers of the Year” by The Best Lawyers in America® 2013 (Copyright 2012 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, SC). Best Lawyers®, the oldest lawyer-rating publication in the U.S., honors only a single lawyer in each practice area and designated metropolitan community as “Lawyer of the Year,” making this honor particularly significant.

Recently, the Texas Court of Appeals, Third District, issued a memorandum opinion in an interlocutory appeal from a trial court’s denial of the City’s plea to the jurisdiction relating to inverse condemnation claims for flooding. (A plea to the jurisdiction challenges the court’s authority to decide a case.)

Today, the Owners’ Counsel of America (OCA) filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the landowner in Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States (12-1173) urging the United States Supreme Court to review a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in United States v. Brandt, 2012 WL 3935613 (C.A.10 (Wyo.)) which erroneously found that the federal government retained an “implied reversionary interest” in railroad rights of way granted under an 1875 Congressional Act.

The Owners’ Counsel of America (OCA) has filed an amicus brief in support of the landowner in Brandt v. United States (12-1173) urging the United States Supreme Court to review the decision of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal and resolve a “circuit split” concerning whether the United States has a reversionary interest in railroad rights of way crossing privately-owned lands under a 1875 Congressional Act.

The 2013 Brigham-Kanner Conference will take place October 17-18 at William & Mary School of Law in Williamsburg, Virginia. The 2013 Conference marks ten years that members of the bench, bar and academia have come together to explore recent developments in takings and property law and discuss the importance property rights plays in American society.