Our land condemnation group has a proven record of consistent success at the appellate level, as well as in negotiation and trial. Appeals in condemnation cases are rare, but may occur when the losing party challenges a judge’s pretrial ruling or a jury verdict and asks a higher court to reverse the decision. Fortunately, we’ve never been in the position of needing to file an appeal for our clients. When the government has lost, and appealed, our land condemnation lawyers have prevailed every time. In every case, the jury verdict or lower court ruling in favor of our client was upheld by the appellate courts, or the government’s appeal was abandoned or dismissed.
Examples of our success in the North Carolina Court of Appeals and Supreme Court of North Carolina:
Department of Transportation v. Fernwood Hill Townhome Homeowner’s Association, Inc. (2007).
The DOT claimed it didn’t owe townhome owners anything for taking their backyards, because the property taken was common area. The DOT only offered $5,600 to the Homeowner’s Association for the common area it took; it didn’t offer the owners anything for damage to their homes caused by the loss of the common area. The trial court granted our motion to require the Department to consider damage to the townhomes. The DOT appealed to the North Carolina Court of Appeals. When we won the case in the appellate courts, North Carolina Lawyers Weekly called the decision one of the most important recent appellate decisions in the State.
Department of Transportation v. Marsten Baptist Church (2009).
The DOT took a small, rural church for a road widening, but offered the congregation pennies on the dollar for the building, because its appraisers failed to consider the fact that the church was a special use property, and depreciated it based solely on its age. After a jury verdict in the church’s favor, the DOT appealed to the Court of Appeals. The appellate court upheld our client’s jury verdict, affirming the trial court’s instructions about valuation of special use properties.
*Past performance is not indicative of future results