link - Institute for JusticeThe state plans to take the home, knock it down, and then think really hard about what it might put there instead. Charlie, armed with the resolve he learned from his Holocaust-survivor parents, has had one consistent message for state officials: No way. I am not going anywhere.
In February, New Jersey’s appellate court said the same thing: Charlie is staying put. In a unanimous opinion, the court affirmed IJ’s initial victory in this case, which followed a trial held back in 2016. The trial court found that the government’s attempt to take Charlie’s property without any credible plan for doing anything with it was a “manifest abuse of the eminent domain power.”
The state appealed that ruling, arguing that the judge had been wrong to impose any limits on its power at all. But the appellate court was unimpressed by the state’s claim to unlimited authority. The most recent opinion makes clear not only that there are limits on eminent domain in New Jersey but also that the courts stand ready to enforce them as necessary.
The government’s arrogance was not unfounded. Before it tried to condemn Charlie’s home, this state agency had lost only one condemnation case since it was first established in 1976. (Not coincidentally, that one loss was an IJ case, so perhaps the agency should have learned its lesson already.) But the appellate court’s ruling shows that—at least when it comes to eminent domain—the times in New Jersey are very much a-changin’.
