Two recent stories are sure to get your blood boiling if you support private property rights. The first regards a decision by the Supreme Court not to hear a New York eminent domain case, which saw Columbia University first game the system to have property falsely labeled as “blighted,” which it was then free to force out of the hands of the rightful owners.
The legal fight began in 2008, when the Empire State Development Corporation—the state agency with the power to invoke eminent domain—deemed the neighborhood “blighted,” paving the way for eminent domain, which is only legal for projects that serve the “public good.”
Sprayregen, Singh, and Kaur sued the state after the ESDC approval, and a year later, the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division ruled in a surprise decision that eminent domain in this case was in fact illegal, saying that the project was for the benefit of an “elite” private institution and thus did not qualify as a public good.
ESDC immediately appealed to the highest court in the state, the Court of Appeals, which overturned the Appellate Division ruling and argued in favor of eminent domain for Columbia’s campus. This ruling now stands uncontested.
“We are extremely disappointed that the Supreme Court of the United States decided not to hear this important eminent domain case,” said Norman Siegel, Sprayregen’s attorney and the former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “The denial … means that the abuse of eminent domain in New York stands.”
The second outrageous story also comes from New York, where the owner of an antiques shop had hundreds of vintage subway signs confiscated by police as evidence when he was charged with theft of the items. The charges were later dismissed, but police are refusing to return his property.
Mr. LeRoy, who owns Billy’s Antiques in Greenwich Village, is trying to reclaim possession of about 100 vintage subway signs that were seized as evidence upon his arrest on theft charges. With the charges now dismissed in Manhattan Criminal Court, Mr. LeRoy wants the signs back.
But the Manhattan district attorney’s office has said it does not have the authority to return them, and is unsure who the rightful owner is. The office told Mr. LeRoy that he may have to sue to get them back.
The district attorney’s stance is based mostly on a provision of the New York City administrative code, which essentially puts the burden on people who have property taken from them to prove they are the rightful owner.
