Eminent Domain Report

Redevelopment agencies (RDAs) have held a rather infamous position in California history.  While originally created to address urban decay (aka “blight”), generally speaking, RDAs developed into entities that wielded the power of eminent domain to designate large areas of property “blighted,” acquire the property, and then hand it off to private developers.  The RDAs were motivated to engage in this behavior because they captured the increases in property tax revenues that resulted from the increase in property values caused by the urban renewal projects. This resulted ...

A new bill -- AB 238 -- is working its way through the State Assembly which would require a reduction in compensation payable to a successful plaintiff in an inverse condemnation action in direct proportion to the owner’s percentage of fault in causing damages to the owner’s property.  While the doctrine of comparative fault is one of the cornerstones of tort law, it is rarely applicable to inverse condemnation actions. 

Ever since the seminal decision in Albers v. County of Los Angeles (1965) 62 Cal.2d 250, there has been a more or less bright line distinction between the strict ...