Successful Representation of Municipality in Right to Take Hearing

Our client, a municipality, filed an action to appropriate private property for a road improvement project. The private owner challenged our client’s right to take its property and the necessity of the appropriation. A Hamilton County, Ohio Court of Common Pleas judge heard testimony and evidence over six days. The court concluded the private owner’s property was needed for our client’s road project and the project was necessary to improve safety and traffic control and efficiency at the intersection. Finally, the evidence established that the municipality operated in good faith and fully complied with R.C. 163.04 and R.C. 163.59. Thus, the court determined our client had the right, and had established the required necessity, to appropriate the property for the road improvement project.  We later tried the remaining parts of this eminent domain case to a jury for approximately two weeks.