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Connecticut's Eminent Domain Laws and Property Rights

Meet OCA's Connecticut Attorney

Greg Servodidio

Greg Servodidio

Gregory F. Servodidio, CRE is a member in the law firm of Pullman & Comley, LLC located in its Hartford, Connecticut office and chair of its Property Tax and Valuation Department. For over 30 years, the focus of Greg’s law practice has been the representation of businesses, nonprofits and individuals in eminent domain and property tax appeals in which the value of real property interests as well as business personal property has been at issue. He has litigated hundreds of these appeals in the Connecticut Superior Courts, Appellate Court and Supreme Court.

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Connecticut

Pullman & Comley, LLC
90 State House Square
Hartford, Connecticut 06103
Tel: 860-424-4332
gservodidio@pullcom.com
Pullman & Comley

Greg brings his extensive experience in the field of property valuation litigation to bear in representing property owners in eminent domain proceedings to ensure that his clients receive just compensation for their property. For example, he represented the owners of a multi-tenant office building and a mixed-use property significantly impacted by proposed partial takings and acquisitions of easements by the Connecticut Department of Transportation for an infrastructure improvement project. These representations resulted in damages awards to his clients totaling over $28.5 million.

Greg’s professional accomplishments include:

  • Listed in The Best Lawyers in America in the areas of eminent domain and condemnation law since 2013.
  • Received the highest peer review rating by Martindale-Hubbell (AV).
  • Co-author of the Connecticut chapter of the American Bar Association’s fifty-state survey entitled “The Law of Eminent Domain”.
  • Co-author of the Connecticut chapter in all 28 editions of the American Bar Association’s “Property Tax Deskbook”.
  • Elected to membership in The Counselors of Real Estate (CRE) in 2012.
  • Successfully completed American Arbitration Association’s 40-hour Essential Mediation Skills for the New Mediator training course.
  • Over 80 professional speaking engagements since 2001 including on eminent domain topics.


For additional information about Greg and his firm, visit:
https://www.pullcom.com/people-gregoryservodidio

Bar and Court Admissions:

  • Connecticut
  • U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut

Education:

  • Georgetown University Law Center, J.D.
  • Georgetown University, A.B., magna cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa

Greg brings his extensive experience in the field of property valuation litigation to bear in representing property owners in eminent domain proceedings to ensure that his clients receive just compensation for their property. For example, he represented the owners of a multi-tenant office building and a mixed-use property significantly impacted by proposed partial takings and acquisitions of easements by the Connecticut Department of Transportation for an infrastructure improvement project. These representations resulted in damages awards to his clients totaling over $28.5 million.

Greg’s professional accomplishments include:

  • Listed in The Best Lawyers in America in the areas of eminent domain and condemnation law since 2013.
  • Received the highest peer review rating by Martindale-Hubbell (AV).
  • Co-author of the Connecticut chapter of the American Bar Association’s fifty-state survey entitled “The Law of Eminent Domain”.
  • Co-author of the Connecticut chapter in all 28 editions of the American Bar Association’s “Property Tax Deskbook”.
  • Elected to membership in The Counselors of Real Estate (CRE) in 2012.
  • Successfully completed American Arbitration Association’s 40-hour Essential Mediation Skills for the New Mediator training course.
  • Over 80 professional speaking engagements since 2001 including on eminent domain topics.


For additional information about Greg and his firm, visit:
https://www.pullcom.com/people-gregoryservodidio

Connecticut is the home of the landmark — some would say “notorious” — decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), upholding the government’s power to forcibly take land from one private owner and then convey it to a private developer for the purpose of redeveloping the land,…maybe. New London’s local redevelopment agency seized dozens of single-family homes and businesses in a much-loved, solid-as-a-rock, working class neighborhood without any real assurance that the developer’s private project would actually be built. A decade and half later, proof positive of the failure of the courts in that litigation can be seen at the site that is still lying fallow. Nothing built. All the homes and businesses destroyed. All the families gone.

The Kelo case arose under Connecticut’s unusual, permissive provisions regarding redevelopment, but the balance of the eminent domain law remains typical. While 43 states changed their laws in one way or another after Kelo, Connecticut of all places did practically nothing, enacting only the watered-down Public Act 07-141, adding a little more procedure and not much else. Unlike several other states, Connecticut does not provide for the recovery of a landowner’s attorneys’ fees in defending against an eminent domain action and seeking just compensation, except in the rare case when the government abandons the eminent domain proceeding or a court makes a final judgment that the eminent domain may not be used. In some instances, the property owner may recover expert witness fees and costs.

The Castle Coalition, a project of the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit legal organization, gives Connecticut’s eminent domain laws a grade of “D”. Consequently, in Connecticut, it is essential to focus on the pre-acquisition negotiation and bargaining process, and to marshal the best of the experts to “win” a case short of trial.

For Connecticut’s eminent domain statutes, go to Title 835, Sections 48-1 through 48-30 and for the authority to use eminent domain in redevelopment, the statutes applied in the Kelo case, go to Chapter 130 and Chapter 132

A Summary of Connecticut's Eminent Domain Laws

The following responses are intended to provide general information about eminent domain laws in the featured state. Such information does not constitute legal advice. Anyone interested in learning more about eminent domain law and the impact it may have on a given set of facts should consult with an OCA attorney or another attorney experienced in handling eminent domain cases.

  • Who Can Exercise Eminent Domain Laws?

    An extraordinarily wide variety of state and local entities in Connecticut, and even corporations, have the power to take private property by eminent domain. The State and its departments have that power, including the: Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Department of Public Works (DPW), Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), Office of Policy and Management (OPM), and the Connecticut State University System.

    Municipalities, and municipal and regional authorities, can also take by eminent domain. In addition to the cities and towns themselves, the eminent domain power vests in water pollution control authorities; housing authorities; parking authorities; redevelopment agencies; municipal and regional resource recovery authorities; school districts in towns, cities, and boroughs; and corporations authorized to supply inhabitants with water.

    Even quasi-public agencies have the power to take your land by eminent domain, among them: New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Connecticut's Public Transportation Authority; the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority (CRRA); the Lower Fairfield County Convention Center Authority; and the Capital City Economic Development Authority.

    Still other entities are authorized under Connecticut law to take property, including a municipal electric energy cooperative; a transit district; a port authority; railroads; a corporation that constructs or operates a natural gas pipeline; cemetery associations; non-profit hospitals; and a cooperative under the electric cooperative act.

  • What are the Legal Pre-requisites to Exercising the Power?

    A public use or purpose is a condition precedent for acquisition by eminent domain. The redevelopment statutes make clear that redevelopment, including taking from a private property owner and then immediately transferring the property to a private developer, is a public purpose. Just compensation must be paid.

  • What Limitations or Defenses Exist?

    There must be a public purpose and thus a public use for a taking by eminent domain. It is for courts to decide if the use is a public use and the courts almost always side with the government. In an older Connecticut case, the Connecticut Supreme Court said that “[a] public use defies absolute definition, for it changes with varying conditions of society, new appliances in the sciences, changing conceptions of the scope and functions of government, and other differing circumstances brought about by an increase in population and new modes of communication and transportation.” Barnes v. New Haven, 140 Conn. 8, 98 A.2d 523 (1953). And 52 years later, the Connecticut Supreme Court in Kelo cited with approval a leading U.S. Supreme Court decision: “The role of the judiciary in determining whether that power is being exercised for a public purpose is an extremely narrow one." Kelo v. City of New London, 268 Conn. 1 (2004). (emphasis added, quoting Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26 (1954).

  • What Constitutes a Public Purpose?

    A public purpose in Connecticut may be found even where a private person have been given the power of eminent domain, so long as “the benefit of the property taken is considered to be available to the general public. Connecticut College v. Calvert, 87 Conn. 421 (1913).

  • How is Just Compensation Determined?

    Just compensation is the fair market value based on the highest and best use at the time of the taking. Highest and best use is the use which will most likely produce the highest market value, greatest financial return, or the most profit.

  • How is Fair Market Value Defined?

    Fair market value is what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller.

  • What About Recovering Damages to Remaining Property?

    Yes. The Connecticut courts have been clear that a property owner can recover for damages to the remaining property: “The rationale behind looking not just to the value of the part of the condemnee's property taken, but also to consequential damages caused to the remaining property not taken, is that it is unjust to expect the condemnee to bear damages for which the public should stand.” Northeast Ct. Economic Alliance, Inc. v. ATC Partnership, 256 Conn. 813, 776 A.2d 1068 (2001).

  • Is the Landowners Entitled to Recover Reasonable Attorney Fees? Expert Fees? Litigation Costs?

    Generally, attorney’s fees are not recoverable, as noted above. Expert witness fees, such as those of appraisers, and other costs, may be recoverable if the judgment of the court exceeds the offer made by the condemning authority.

  • Can the Government Take Possession of the Landowner's Property Before Final Compensation is Paid?

    Yes, Connecticut is a so-called “quick-take” state. The condemning authority makes an offer, some negotiation then takes place, and if a value cannot be agreed upon, the condemning authority deposits into the court the amount it is willing to pay and then essentially conveys the property to itself. The property owner can withdraw the money from the court, is allowed to stay for a short time, and must decide whether to sue in court for more compensation.

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