My fellow Russkie lawprof Ilya Somin (George Mason) — part of the small but growing Russo-American invasion of the legal academy — passed along, at my request, this brief summary of the Hathcock case:
The Michigan Supreme Court recently overruled one of the worst judicial decisions of modern times. In County of Wayne v. Hathcock, the court reversed Poletown Neighborhood Council v. City of Detroit, a 1981 decision that allowed Detroit to use the power of eminent domain to take and bulldoze an entire neighborhood so General Motors could build a new factory. As a result of Poletown, over 4,200 people lost their homes, 16 churches were destroyed, and an entire community was wiped out. Perhaps even more importantly, Poletown set a dangerous precedent for similar abuses of government power in Michigan and elsewhere. Numerous politically connected businesses and other powerful private interests have used it to justify using the state’s takings power for their own benefit.
Under most state constitutions, including Michigan’s, government may only take private property for a “public use.” This test traditionally forbade most takings that transferred private property to other private hands. Courts rightly reasoned that the power to condemn property should not be abused to enable the wealthy and politically influential to appropriate their neighbors’ property for their own benefit. Poletown, on the other hand permitted the condemnation of property for transfer to private interests so long as the action creates a public benefit by “bolster[ing] the economy.” As the Hathcock opinion explains, Poletown‘s “economic benefit” rationale “would validate practically any exercise of the power of eminent domain on behalf of a private” commercial enterprise. Virtually any business can claim that increasing its profitability will “bolster the economy.”
For more details on why Poletown was a horrible decision, see my January op ed on the subject in the Detroit News.
The court’s unanimous decision to overrule Poletown is a major victory for constitutional rights. Hathcock restores the traditional principle that government may not, as a general rule, take private property for the purpose of giving it to other private individuals or corporations. Hathcock‘s most important contribution is establishing the rule that “bolstering the economy” is not enough of a reason to condemn private property for transfer to other private interests.
The Hathcock opinion is available online here.
Scroll down to the second half if you want to read the important part.
Ilya knows the case well; he filed an amicus brief in it for the Institute for Justice and Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
The decision, of course, is binding precedent only in Michigan, but it may well prove influential elsewhere as well, since state courts interpreting their own state’s constitution often look to trends in other states for guidance.
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