Posted on 08/02/2004 10:41:26 AM PDT by tdadams
DETROIT -- The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday redefined the power of Michigan governments to take property for development projects, overruling a landmark 1981 decision and barring Wayne County from acquiring land for a 1,300-acre project near Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
On the court’s final day of its term, all seven justices agreed that the earlier precedent should be overturned, though they differed on the reasons and whether the decision should be applied retroactively.
Justice Robert Young, who wrote the lead opinion, called the 1981 case allowing Detroit’s Poletown neighborhood to be cleared for a General Motors Corp. plant a “radical departure from fundamental constitutional principles.”
“We overrule Poletown,” Young wrote, “in order to vindicate our Constitution, protect the people’s property rights and preserve the legitimacy of the judicial branch as the expositor, not creator, of fundamental law.”
Young said the case presented a clash between two fundamental legal principles: individuals’ right to control their private property and government’s authority to condemn property for public use.
The court heard arguments in April about an effort by Wayne County to acquire land for a planned 1,300-acre industrial and commercial project near Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The case drew the attention of Michigan communities as well as advocacy groups from across the country.
The county in 2001 sued landowners who refused to sell property for its Pinnacle Aeropark project in Romulus and Huron Township. Lower courts sided with the county, which argued that it had the right to buy the remaining land -- about 2 percent of the project site -- under Michigan law and the Poletown precedent.
But the defendants argued that the 1981 Poletown case was flawed. They said the state constitution limits governments to use eminent domain in instances where the land will have a public use.
“This is a towering decision by a very bright court,” attorney Alan Ackerman, who represents the landowners, said Friday of the Supreme Court’s ruling. “The day of unlimited governmental power to acquire property may be over.”
The ruling is retroactive, applying to all pending cases where there's a challenge to the Poletown decision.
Some justices dissented from that part of the decision, arguing that it should apply prospectively.
Justices Michael Cavanagh and Marilyn Kelly said Wayne County, which spent $50 million on the project, shouldn't be "penalized" for following the court's earlier precedent.
Lets hope that other courts around the country take notice and follow this ruling.
There's something abhorrent for a court or city to say that they can take your propoerty and give it to someone they "like" better, ie, usually the one who will make them more money.
Better to just get rid of the development taking.
Wow, nice to see this.
patent
Posted a day or so here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1182086/posts
I bet this won't be applied against the NYT, which did the same thing in NYC.
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