The New York Court of Appeals allowed the land to seize the parking lot and found that the collection was in public interest.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided on March 24th not to listen to the controversial 20-year-old ruling in favour of the powers of prominent domains to confiscate private property for private economic development.
This new case was brought by a development company whose land was expropriated by a local development agency and given to business competitors who wanted to use the land for parking.
A prominent domain is the power of the government to acquire or expropriate property for public use, provided the owner is merely compensated.
Traditionally, “public use” meant directly projecting public uses such as schools and roads, but in Kero, the courts expanded the meaning of the phrase, allowing local governments to expropriate private property for economic development and provide it to private entities.
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In its 2005 ruling, the Supreme Court said it would not presume the second-largest decision of the city of New London, Connecticut.
Writing for the majority, Judge John Paul Stevens rejected the private property owner’s proposal that the court would “adopt a new bright line rule that economic development is not permitted as public use.”
“Promoting economic development is a traditional and long-received function of government,” he writes.
“Obviously, there is no basis for exemption from economic development from our traditional understanding of broad public purposes.”
Judge Sandra Day O’Connor objected, writing that, as a result of the ruling, “the government currently has a license to transfer property from people with fewer resources to more people.”
“The beneficiaries are likely citizens who have disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development companies,” she said.
Since Kero, 47 states have strengthened rules aimed at prominent domain abuse, either through legislative or state Supreme Court decisions.
Current case
In the case at hand, Bowers Development told the Supreme Court in December 2024 that it had signed a contract to buy land in upstate New York.
Co-Respondent Central Utica Building LLC was building another clinic building nearby and wanted to use the land as a parking lot next to the planned building.
In October 2021, Central Utica asked the Oneida County Industrial Development Bureau to expropriate the property.
The agency believes that the use of Central Utica land will provide economic benefits to the area and agreed to acquire the land and give it to Central Utica, the petition said.
The New York Supreme Court’s Office of Appeals held that the condemnation of medical use lies outside the legal authority of the institution for the acquisition of property for commercial purposes.
Accusation is the process in which the government seizes private property and benefits its people.
The New York Court of Appeals overturned the ruling, finding that the accusation is legally valid because “the parking facilities used by profitable business customers have obvious “commercial” purposes.”
The court returned the case to the Appeals Office, saying that “building a “parking facility used by profitable business customers” was publicly available under the public use clause.”
Building a private office parking lot was “rationally related to possible public purposes” such as “relief of parking and traffic congestion.”
Bowers Development urged the Supreme Court to overturn Kero, which many states refused to amend the state’s constitution, and several state Supreme Courts found that “we erroneously read what is unfair and easy to handle and that it is listed immediately by the Constitution.”
A New York state-level court “ignoring Kero’s warnings and found that the individual-to-private transfer would survive constitutional scrutiny as long as the accuser could clarify some of theoretical public interest,” the petition said.
In federal and state courts in New York, “it is irrelevant to whether the acquisition has begun at the request of a single private beneficiary or outside the context of a broader government-led development plan,” the petition states.
According to a January 21 overview, the use of a prominent domain to use prominent domains to control public parking lot land constituted a valid public use.
The parking lot itself is part of the development plan for the Integrated Hell Campus (IHC) in downtown Utica, New York.
The case “does not present any issues that exist before the courts in Kero” because Lott “is being open to IHC patients and staff use it during business hours and as a wider community uses it at night and weekends,” Brief said.
He also states that he stands in the development of Bowers as he is a “speculator who does not own the blamed property.”
Standing refers to someone’s right to sue in court. The parties must demonstrate sufficiently strong connection to the claim to justify participation in the case.
Paul Goldman, Goldman, a lawyer from Albany, New York, was pleased with the Supreme Court decision.
“We felt we met all the requirements of Kero in Cleef,” Goldman told the Epoch Times.
“Using parking for healthcare… served a public purpose.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Central Utica’s lawyer, Amy Habi Britling of Lippes Matthias, of Buffalo, NY, for comment, but did not receive a reply by publication time to request comment.
Bowers Development Attorneys for Robert McNamara, assistant litigation director at the Judicial Institute in Arlington, Virginia, placed emphasis on the new ruling.
“The court has rejected this opportunity to restore some basic protections to American property rights, but we must ultimately confront this question,” McNamara told the Epoch Times.
“Prominent domain abuse continues to ramp out in New York and several other states that have refused to change the law, and will not halt until federal courts return to constitutional enforcement.”
