The Virginia Supreme Court heard oral argument last week in Hooked Group, LLC v. City of Chesapeake . Anyone working in right of way in Virginia, particularly anyone working for or with municipalities, should pay close attention to the outcome of this case as it addresses the power to regulate traffic for public health, safety, [...]
Ever since the Supreme Court decided that economic development was a “public use” for which land could be taken by eminent domain under the Fifth Amendment in the controversial case of Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), the landowner bar and property rights interest groups have been searching for cases to [...]
Landowners in pipeline cases commonly attempt to introduce evidence that the existence of pipelines near their property will, in itself, reduce the value of their remaining land. In Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC v. 1.85 Acres of Land, Owned by Jacqueline J. Lucki, Case No. 7:19-cv-00147, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia [...]
Senate Bill 485, the previously-described bill that originally would have allowed owners to simply declare their property to be an uneconomic remnant in partial take cases and that was amended to provide for separate litigation on that issue at an early stage of the condemnation case, has likely failed. On Monday, the Civil Subcommittee of [...]
The bill that would have imposed a moratorium on new natural gas pipeline construction in Virginia died without hearing or vote in the House Committee on Appropriations because it was not passed out of the House by “cross-over,” the date after which each house in the General Assembly may only consider bills originating in the [...]
As noted in a previous post, the Virginia General Assembly is currently considering a bill that, in its original form, would have allowed landowners to simply declare the residue of their land remaining after a partial take an uneconomic remnant and force localities acquiring such property for highway projects to take the owner’s entire parcel. [...]
A bill under consideration by the General Assembly of Virginia would incorporate elements of the federal Green New Deal Resolution into state law and prohibit new interstate pipeline projects in the state. House Bill 77 would, among other things, require the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy to adopt a Climate Action Plan to [...]
Senate Bill 485, which is currently pending before the Virginia General Assembly, would require entities that condemn land for a highway project to condemn an owner’s entire parcel whenever the owner demands it. Under the proposed bill, the owner of the parcel, not the condemnor, would decide whether the residue the owner is left with [...]
The Supreme Court of Virginia has agreed to hear an interesting case that offers the Court an opportunity to explore the boundary between the police power and eminent domain. The case will have major implications for localities’ ability to manage their roads. In Hooked Group, LLC v. City of Chesapeake, the Court will decide whether [...]
A bill pre-filed for consideration by the 2020 Virginia General Assembly could harm railroad users and utility ratepayers and consumers (i.e., those that use electricity and landline telephones) by increasing the frequency of the award of litigation costs in eminent domain cases. The bill does this by eliminating the special rules that apply in state [...]