The Institute for Justice has won a victory in an important property rights case in National City California. The trial judge set aside the city’s “blight” designation of a massive area including almost 700 properties. Had the designation survived, it would have enabled the city to condemn any of these properties at will. Here is IJ’s statement on the case, and here is an article in which city officials seek to downplay the damage.
For reasons, I discussed in this post, the National City case is a particularly egregious example of the widespread phenomenon under which local governments use of dubious blight designations to condemn property and transfer it to politically influential developers and other interest groups. The City declared a vast area to be “blighted” on the basis of extremely dubious evidence, and then refused to even make the evidence available for public scrutiny.
The problem of blight condemnations is far from limited to California. In numerous states, broad definitions of “blight” have undermined post-Kelo eminent domain reforms supposedly intended to protect property owners against eminent domain abuse. If pretty much any area can be declared blighted and condemned, no one’s land is safe unless, of course, they have a lot of political clout.
The trial court ruling is only the first step in an ongoing legal battle. California courts are historically very deferential to blight condemnations, and it’s certainly possible that the trial court will be overruled, at least on some issues.
I may have more to say on this subject later. But for now, I must conclude, as my laptop battery is running low, while I wait for my connecting flight to Istanbul at the Vienna airport.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST WATCH: I have done pro bono work for the Institute for Justice on various other property rights cases. But I have not had any involvement with this one.
Byung Kyu Park says:
Obama dispels the birther theory and now eminent domain suffers a setback? Can this week get any worse for Trump?
April 29, 2011, 4:07 amTom says:
From what I can see on Google Maps’ Street View, the area is far from upscale, but it looks basically clean. The crime stats suggest National City is a pit compared to San Diego, thus I guess the “blight” thing was a ploy to bulldoze out all the poor Hispanics?
Glad they didn’t get away with that.
April 29, 2011, 8:51 amRfg says:
It’s not over yet. Given past court decisions (Kelo) it is entirely possible that this decision will be overtones on appeal.
April 29, 2011, 8:58 amSteve says:
It’s always possible a decision will be overturned on appeal, but Kelo has nothing to do with it. Kelo merely says the federal courts won’t step in, except possibly in the most egregious circumstances.
April 29, 2011, 9:42 amgab says:
It wouldn’t make sense for National City to appeal. Redevelopment agencys in California are soon to be dead, so there is no economic reason for them to continue.
April 29, 2011, 10:59 amjoe says:
I will let the appeallet lawyers correct me or clarify.
My understanding of the opinion is that the judge held in thefindings of fact was that the area did not meet the definition of “blighted” which is fact finding. He did not rule that the law was being misapplied.
Appeal courts are generally reluctant to over turn findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous (exceptions due occur such as the 6th circuits holding in grutter, but they are rare.
April 29, 2011, 12:14 pmjoe says:
I will let the appeallet lawyers correct me or clarify.
My understanding of the opinion is that the judge held in thefindings of fact was that the area did not meet the definition of “blighted” which is fact finding. He did not rule that the law was being misapplied.
Appeal courts are generally reluctant to over turn findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous (exceptions due occur such as the 6th circuits holding in grutter, but they are rare.
April 29, 2011, 12:14 pmfwb says:
One man’s blight is another man’s beauty. Blight is not and should not a reason for theft by fiat. No taking that occurs under the guise of blight is ever justified. But then the smallest penis usually goes in for abusing power over others.
April 29, 2011, 12:54 pmDYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » A Victory for Property Rights in California “Blight” Case says:
[...] Read it. If pretty much any area can be declared blighted and condemned, no one’s land is safe unless, of course, they have a lot of political clout. [...]
April 29, 2011, 1:01 pmChris says:
I think Ilya is wrong about CA law. When Kelo came down I did a lot of research on this in CA and in other states and my recollection is the CA courts were actually the least deferential to blight designations at least compared to other states. I have not looked at the cases in a while, but I recall the CA Courts really looking closely at the quality of the evidence and the scope of the designation whereas many courts in other states gave it a cursory review at best. Are CA courts skeptical enough? No. Are they better than other courts? Yes. Maybe this has changed. I don’t know. When I looked at the issue, I was reviewing largely pre-Kelo jurisprudence. After Kelo, everyone started taking a closer looks.
April 29, 2011, 1:58 pmTatil says:
Well, everybody loves a good hyperbole, but considering they pay for it, it is a bit of a reach to call it theft, isn’t it?
April 29, 2011, 3:21 pmTatil says:
Even though it is good to have such a judicial outcome at this point, I hope Jerry Brown’s abolishment of CA redevelopment agencies will do much more for this cause.
April 29, 2011, 3:30 pmawp says:
Tatil,
So it is not theft if I use the threat of force to take something as long as I leave a penny?
response to first objection,
“Market value” used in the compensation in eminent domain is not market value. The real market value can only be reached voluntarily.
response to second objection,
April 29, 2011, 3:38 pmI am okay with the use of eminent domain as an absolute last resort for true public use, as opposed to the enrichment of private persons. (I admit public use is ill-defined, but I believe falls well within the bound set by Kelo, and is closer to the common sense definition of used by the public.)
NM Kerr says:
They pay what they want to pay, not what it is worth to the owner. That is theft.
April 30, 2011, 3:41 amBrett Bellmore says:
Heck, IIRC, Kelo didn’t even propose a vague definition of “public use”, the phrase actually found in the 5th amendment. It replaced it with “public purpose”, something the 5th amendment DOESN’T mention. Thus obviating the need for the government to actually take, and retain, ownership of the property in order to invoke eminent domain.
April 30, 2011, 10:23 amSteve says:
Determining that an area is not “blighted” for the purposes of a particular statute would appear to be a conclusion of law rather than a finding of fact, or a mixed conclusion/finding.
April 30, 2011, 10:25 amrichard mcenroe says:
Byung Kyu Park: A week can NEVER get too bad for Donald Trump.
The only thing that will protect these homes is for the homeowners to remember who tried to pull this on them on election day.
April 30, 2011, 10:33 amwillis says:
When one can compel another to sell against their wishes, it is theft.
April 30, 2011, 10:37 amHere’s the deal: « gregormendelblog.com says:
[...] it theft? Yeah. Recently a court has ruled against it, but it happens all the time. This specific case is particularly bad, but it’s not like this [...]
April 30, 2011, 11:32 amClaude Hopper says:
I used to have a Sunday coffee and doughnut at a shop in Placentia Ca. (Orange County). The shop owner, a Cambodian immigrant, said he loved the US because in Cambodia, if you had a successful business, the police chief or other official, could just take it away. He said that couldn’t happen in the US. Thanks to the IJ, he may now be closer to being correct.
April 30, 2011, 12:01 pmCurious Passerby says:
but considering they pay for it, it is a bit of a reach to call it theft, isn’t it?
Gimme your watch or I’ll kill you. Here’s a dollar so it’s not theft.
April 30, 2011, 12:08 pmLoren Ibsen says:
“Gimme your watch or I’ll kill you. Here’s a dollar so it’s not theft.”
“Gimme your watch or I’ll kill you. Here’s a million dollars so it’s not theft.”
Curious is right either way: it’s theft.
April 30, 2011, 2:01 pmTom Armstrong says:
As a San Diego County native, I would say that if any area of National City is blighted, then ALL of National City is blighted. William Shatner was mistaken when he referred to El Cajon as the anus of San Diego (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tvbbsjQaMs ). That honor should go to National City. El Cajon is perhaps the armpit…
April 30, 2011, 2:27 pmMichael J. Myers says:
With all due respect to National City–a good bit of it is a dump. The housing stock is largely 70 plus years old; it was always a bit of a low income neighborhood–even in its best days.
So you have to ask yourself; what was different about these 700 properties from the rest of National City? I’d suggest “not much”.
I don’t doubt that the “City fathers” would argue that one neighborhood had to be sacrificed so they could go chasing after yet another “big box store” or two to garner sales tax revenue.
But does National City–or anywhere else–really need another big box store? And if they do, then the developers of the big box store ought to be able to come up with the scratch to pay the affected property owners a price that’s acceptable to the property owner in a private transaction.
May 1, 2011, 12:19 pm