Major Victory in Airport Taking

Northern Michigan airport agrees to pay almost 15 times their offer to settle after I won all the pretrial motions.

An airport in northern Michigan recently agreed to enter a judgment that requires them to pay $1,790,000, including just compensation, interest, reimbursement of all attorney fees, and reimbursement of all litigation expenses. This amount is approximately 15 times the amount that it intended to offer as just compensation at trial.

The airport imposed an avigation easement. While it did not expressly preclude expansion of the existing business, it was our position that it made an expansion imprudent. We sought approximately $1,500,000 in additional just compensation. The airport filed a motion, scheduled for the week before trial, seeking to exclude our appraisal position by arguing that an expansion was still technically possible. I had chosen not to seek to strike the airport’s appraisal for strategic reasons but when the airport decided to attack our position, I responded in kind. The judge ruled in our favor on all motions before him, allowing our appraisal to be admitted and excluding the airport’s appraisal. The trial was adjourned to sort out the impacts of the rulings, giving time to negotiate a settlement.

The airport faced the uncertainty that judgment could be entered in our appraisal amount. We faced the uncertainty that the judge might allow the airport to reappraise the property and essentially restart the litigation process. We were able to settle the case after each side made some concessions in the easement language. Since we felt that it was imprudent to expand anyway, we agreed to language formally preventing it. The airport agreed to language that reduced some of the damages that we claimed and paid the vast majority of our remaining claims. In addition, all the owners’ litigation expenses were reimbursed by the airport. The owner paid nothing out of pocket for my legal services and their expert services because the airport paid those costs.

This was a huge victory that was only possible through a deep knowledge of condemnation law, a willingness to dig deeply into the history of the airport, and an understanding of the special impacts of airport takings resulting from my extensive experience handling these cases.  When fighting the legal motions, I relied heavily on the published Michigan Court of Appeals opinion in Lenawee v. Wagley, which upheld a verdict that I obtained requiring an airport to acquire a home after an avigation easement was imposed.

Please feel free to contact me if you are facing acquisition of rights by an airport.