New Year’s Resolution for the U.S. Supreme Court: follow the Constitution.
That’s not what happened in 2005 when, by a 5 – 4 majority, the court determined that governments in this country could enjoy an almost unlimited power of eminent domain. The mere prospect of a more taxable commercial entity or mere desire to appease some constituency would suffice to legally justify violating the rights of innocent property owners.
This Kelo v. New London decision was applauded by abusers of power, derided by defenders of property rights. The latter leapt into action, fighting for legislation in 47 states to give property owners firmer protection.
One exception was New York State, where the town of Utica recently used the power of eminent domain against Bryan Bowers and Mike Licata.
These business partners had established a cardiology service to compete with that of CNY Cardiology group, right next door. CNY begged the city to let it turn the Bowers Development building into a parking lot. We need a parking lot there, said CNY; right where our lower-priced competitor is sitting.
The city said okay.
Enough, says Institute for Justice, which is representing Bowers Development and all of us by petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit Kelo.
IJ President Scott Bullock believes that it’s “high time for the Supreme Court itself to … remove this blot on its jurisprudence and restore constitutional guardrails to the use of eminent domain.”
Please resolve to give America a favorable outcome, justices.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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1 reply on “Property Rights for Competitors”
CNY’S building development group sez they had the whole plan set up under contract to buy and Bowers Development came in and bought the next door site out from under them, per their story in the Sentinel. Sounds like they didn’t actually have all their ducks in a row and DIDN’T actually have all the contracts locked in. One the other hand, Bowers Development has been slurping up property all over town that was on fire sale after Covid and appears to have gotten a little overextended, because most of it has been just sitting without any of the promised development and they are now getting hammered over unaddressed code violations. Which sounds like a major cash flow issue. So Bowers was trying to profit from CNY’s incompetence and then got stuck and couldn’t yet finish, or even start, the promised medical office building. If they were actually building as promised, it wouldn’t even be an issue. A major CF. No real good guys or good answers here but if it got rid of Kelo then it would be really a countrywide benefit.
Too bad they couldn’t figure out a way to readdress the unconstitutional interpretation of the Commerce Clause at the same time.