Powerful industry groups back family hardware business in eminent domain battle
Several influential and powerful industry organizations have come to the Supreme Court arguing in support of a family fighting a town’s eminent domain decision to take property they intended to use for a hardware store.
According to the Institute for Justice, which is fighting on behalf of the Brinkmann family, the fight is over the Brinkmann family’s purchase of property in Southold for a hardware store, and the city’s confiscation of that property for a “park” that is supposed to be left entirely undeveloped.
The case argues the town had no legitimate reason for its confiscation of the property.
The IJ explained, “When every legal effort to stop someone from using their property has failed, can the government simply take the land using eminent domain? That is the question at the heart of a new U.S. Supreme Court petition filed by a family-owned hardware store business whose property was taken by a small Long Island town.”
The legal team explains now the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Southern California, the National Association of Realtors and the New York State Association of Realtors have filed arguments on behalf of the plaintiffs in the case.
The Realtors organizations charge that if “eminent domain could be employed at any time … to shut down a law-abiding development because the government disfavors it,” it would leave the real estate industry in tatters.
The IJ explained “The government’s power to take people’s property using eminent domain is limited by the Constitution to only those situations where the taking is for a ‘public use.’ But what if the government lies and invents a public use to shield an illegitimate taking aimed at stopping a homeowner or business from doing something perfectly legal with their property?”
The report notes Southold officials tried a number of ways to prevent the hardware store being added to their business district, and all failed. So they simply claimed that specific property was required for an undeveloped park and took it.
“The town of Southold says that, so long as the government lies about why it’s taking your property, it can take it for any reason at all—even because town officials just don’t like you,” said IJ Senior Attorney Jeffrey Redfern. “That’s wrong, and a diverse coalition of amici explain why.”
The SCLC brief, in fact, cites the injury to Bruce’s Beach, a black resort in California that was shut down by Los Angeles County officials in 1924.
There, too, the city of Manhattan Beach claimed it was needed for a park, “but that was mere pretext—the property instead stayed vacant for over three decades. The real purpose of the taking was to drive out Bruce’s Beach and the surrounding community,” the report said.
The legal team explained unless the case outcome is reversed, “The predictable result of giving local governments this much power over private property would be that only political insiders would be able to develop property.”
But town officials tried to interfere in the land purchase, imposed an exorbitant “impact” fee for a study never done, and pushed a “moratorium” on building permits.
At the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges said, “the government can take your property for almost any reason at all—including because it just doesn’t like you—so long as the government lies about why it is using eminent domain,” explained IJ lawyer Jeff Redfern.