US Supreme Court has gone mad!

[Berzerker]

Of course most home owners have only limited funds to with which to seek legal recourse, and we all know who sets "fair market value" - the city/county real estate assessor and/or the guy with the most highly paid lawyer.

So true, our property taxes are based on an inflated evaluation of our property's value. Wanna bet if the politicians wanted our property for development, they'd discover our property is not worth as much as they claimed when imposing property taxes on us.

Interestingly enough the dissent would allow the seizure if it was for a strip mall or small office buildings or housing development. It had a problem with having most of it benefiting one private party.

SOOO, if this was a strip mall case, the decision would be 9-0.

Based on what? I dont see such a distinction in the Constitution. I dont see anything about state eminent domain, just what the power can be used for by the feds.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Based on what?

I believe the dissent said benefiting one party was not public use (private use instead). But a strip mall was sufficient public use since it wouldn't benefit one company or something (I guess it is also assumed that a strip mall is built and then lots sold to various companies, so it can encourage more competition among stores instead of just having a mega store... I dunno).

[Whoha]

here is something that Bush could do that would win him a great deal of support: Use eminent domain to sieze the land(this particular piece of property) away from the developers for supposed military purposes, and that they will evict and bulldoze it at a later date.

[Berzerker]

Actually, there is a 5th Amendment restriction on eminent domain that applies to the states because of the 14th Amendment. No property shall be taken for "public use" without fair compensation. So what is "public use"? I'd say it refers to the examples given in the Constitution limiting federal eminent domain power - public facilities, not private development.

Bad decision, public use means public use, not private use. Government schools, hospitals, parks, etc are public use, strip malls are not. Those are owned by other private citizens, not the government.

This and past decisions expanding "public use" to include "economic development" is similar to how the interstat commerce clause has been expanded to include anything "affecting" interstate commerce.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Actually, there is a 5th Amendment restriction on eminent domain that applies to the states because of the 14th Amendment. No property shall be taken for "public use" without fair compensation. So what is "public use"?

Yes, Berz, that's the point . It was a discussion about what 'public use' is.

[Berzerker]

Ya ya

[Vanguard]

It is important to game out what would actually happen if the Court created a blanket protection for property owners against development. While it might protect people who want to keep their homes, it would also create a massive potential for abuse.

Remember that most civic development projects are discussed publicly before they are approved. This means that once a project is near approval, speculators could buy up a tiny piece of land in the area and hold the project developers to ransom. Buy my piece of land or you can't build. Period.

Or they could simply offer a blanket arrangement to all property owners in the area to jack up the price for a large commission.

"Fair market value" is the correct formula for eminent domain.

I think, however, that the court probably could have crafted a limited ruling in this case.

[Thorn]

THIS IS FREAKING INSANE!!! There are STEEP ramifications for this ruling....... basically Corporations can now use the government to destroy private property for bulding other private property by corporations........ NOTHING IS SAFE..... this includes CHURCHES!!!

I've never thought this day would come, that the marxists would turn out to be correct..... I am very upset indeed.

Residents in most of these houses are not getting paid fair market value, as the corporations/aka gov't is using the excuse that as comdemned property its value has gone down. THIS IS TOTAL BULL****!

I mean some residents are refusing to leave, so we are going to see SWAT TEAMS and police drag people out of there houses.... This is a very bad day for America.

Republicans are blaming the democrats and vise versa, who is really to blame, SCOTUS!!!

I wouldn't be surprised if this ruling creates civil unrest and all of the consequences that goes with that.

I Hope to god that the congress and the president does something about this. Probably will take an amendment so that the supreme court can shut their trap!

[Imran Siddiqui]

basically Corporations can now use the government to destroy private property for bulding other private property by corporations........ NOTHING IS SAFE..... this includes CHURCHES!!!

Calm down kid. Nothing prevented the government from taking any private property for their own purposes before this ruling. Nothing WAS safe. This just expands the reasons they can take land.

Residents in most of these houses are not getting paid fair market value, as the corporations/aka gov't is using the excuse that as comdemned property its value has gone down.

Please learn the law. This is a 100% incorrect statement.

[Thorn]

Calm down kid. Nothing prevented the government from taking any private property for their own purposes before this ruling. Nothing WAS safe. This just expands the reasons they can take land.

Yes but there was justification, like for a freeway (which is necessary for our national defense transporting troops) not for a freaking mcdonalds or a shopping center.

Please learn the law. This is a 100% incorrect statement.

I know the law, but that isn't how it works in real life, what the gov't and the corporations are doing is counting on the fact that people can't afford the amount of litigation that it would take to actually get fair market value, and this is true most of the time.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes but there was justification, like for a freeway (which is necessary for our national defense transporting troops) not for a freaking mcdonalds or a shopping center.

Or because the government wanted to expand a DMV... or a government agency... or whatever else the government wanted if they controlled what took over.

that isn't how it works in real life, what the gov't and the corporations are doing is counting on the fact that people can't afford the amount of litigation that it would take to actually get fair market value, and this is true most of the time.

Oh please. They give the people who are subject to eminent domain the value of their house based on property tax valuations... and plenty of times more than that. If that isn't fair valuation, I don't know what is.

Without any facts backing it your statement is mere speculation with no substantiation.

[Kuciwalker]

Re: US Supreme Court has gone mad!

This is ****ing insane.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
They should have done this on the Summer Solstice - with that lovely full moon. So far we have The Diplomat, Mr. Fun, Dinodoc, Stuie, Gepap, St. Leo, Impaler, Oerdin, JohnT, Lawrence of Arabia, Tuberski, Ogie, Boann (I checked her thread) and myself (my adjective is OBSCENE) all in agreement. If we can get Ned and Che to post and agree - it's a blue moon!

I'm not quite sure where dv8ed, Imran and MtG fall on this (their posts don't make it clear), and of course DanS is our lone dissenter.

Add me to the first list.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Oh please. They give the people who are subject to eminent domain the value of their house based on property tax valuations... and plenty of times more than that. If that isn't fair valuation, I don't know what is.

You've never owned a house, have you? Tax valuation and fair market value are two very different things, especially in the current market.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Which is why I said "plenty of times more than that". The government pays pretty well for your property a good deal of the time. A lot of times they'll look at sale prices of houses in the neighborhood as well. If that doesn't work they'll use property value assessments under a Market Value Assessment which are based on FMV.