OCA Blog

Today, Owners’ Counsel of America and The Counselors of Real Estate® (CRE) will present our first cooperative webinar: Kelo v. New London: The Grasping Hand and Its Legacy at 12:30 PM (Eastern) / 11:30 AM (Central) / 10:30 AM (Mountain) / 9:30 AM (Pacific) / 6:30 AM (Hawaiian). Participants can register here.

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When you learn that your property may be condemned, you need information and advice as to how to proceed and what actions to take. Here are a number of common questions and answers which may be helpful, including: What is eminent domain? Who can use eminent domain? What does "public use" mean? Can eminent domain be used to take my property and give it to another private party?

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This morning the Virginia Supreme Court issued its opinion in Ramsey v. Commissioner of Highways, No. 149029, finding that the Virginia Department of Transportation's (VDOT) initial pre-condemnation appraisal is not a confidential offer of settlement, but rather, an admission of value that should be considered as evidence at trial.

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The Owners’ Counsel of America (OCA) together with the Central Oregon Builders Association (COBA) and Oregonians In Action (OIA) filed an amicus brief supporting the property owner in State of Oregon v. Alderwoods (Oregon), Inc., case number S062766. The brief asks the Oregon Supreme Court to confirm a long-standing rule that owners of property directly adjacent to a highway have a right to direct access to the roadway.

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The Owners’ Counsel of America (OCA) and the National Federation of IndependentBusiness (NFIB) Small Business Legal Center have filed an amici curiae brief in support of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta property and business owners in Property Reserve, Inc. v. Superior Court, case number S217738.

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In a ceremony February 7, 2015 at the Nikko Hotel in San Francisco, OCA recognized Professor David L. Callies, the Benjamin A. Kudo Professor of Law at the University of Hawai‘i William S. Richardson School of Law, for his lifetime of scholarship addressing land use, eminent domain, takings law and private property rights.

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The Judge of the District Court of Holt County, Nebraska issued a temporary injunction on February 12, 2015, halting Transcanada’s efforts in Nebraska to acquire easement rights for the XL pipeline through eminent domain proceedings. Transcanada had filed over one hundred proceedings in county courts along the proposed route in January, to obtain the permanent and temporary easements needed to complete the pipeline corridor.

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Probably no appeal to the Nebraska Supreme Court has been watched more closely by more people than the challenge to the statutory routing process for the proposed TransCanada XL Pipeline.

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In a lengthy and acrimonious opinion issued January 9, 2015, the Nebraska Supreme Court issued a non-decision on the constitutionality of the process for routing of the TransCanada pipeline through Nebraska. It may prove to approve the route by default. The Court’s opinion answers very little, and raises far more questions than it answers. The only thing that is clear is that not every pipeline can be granted the...

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This week we filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Virginia Beach homeowners, James and Janet Ramsey, in Ramsey v. Commissioner of Highways, Record No. 140929 (review granted November 3, 2014), a case we previously discussed here.

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