Your Government Stole a Developer's Land and Handed It to His Competitor for a Parking Lot

 Bryan Bowers and his business partner Mike Licata saw an opportunity when a new hospital opened in downtown Utica, New York. Doctors in the area were looking for affordable office space, and Bowers signed a contract to buy a vacant lot at 411 Columbia Street — right across from the new hospital — and build a medical office building. It was straightforward private enterprise: willing seller, willing buyer, identified market demand. Then the doctors next door got involved. Central Utica Building LLC, which had already constructed its own medical office building on the adjoining property, didn't want competition cutting into its rental income. So it did what private businesses in New York apparently can do: it wrote a letter to the Oneida County Industrial Development Agency asking the government to seize Bowers' property using eminent domain and hand it over — not for a hospital, not for a road, not for a school, but for a private parking lot to serve their building. The agency agreed, citing vague "economic development" benefits. Bowers fought back through the New York courts and lost at every level. New York courts ruled that as long as a taking provides some conceivable public benefit — including easing the parking needs of a private medical business — eminent domain is fair game. The Institute for Justice took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, backed by briefs from the Cato Institute, George Mason's Scalia Law School, and the Buckeye Institute. On March 24, 2025, the Supreme Court declined to hear it. The property that Bowers had under contract to develop is now a parking lot for his competitors. The Fifth Amendment's "public use" requirement, for practical purposes in New York, means nothing.

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Commentary: A private company wanted its neighbor's land, asked the government to take it, and the government obliged — and every court in America up to the Supreme Court shrugged and said that's fine. The Fifth Amendment says government can only seize private property for "public use." New York's interpretation of "public use" is apparently "whatever a well-connected business asks for." Bryan Bowers' property is now a parking lot. Democracy dies in a surface lot.

📰 https://ij.org/press-release/supreme-court-declines-to-hear-challenge-to-infamous-kelo-eminent-domain-decision/

⚠️ This content was researched and written with AI assistance and may be fully AI-generated. All facts are sourced from the linked Institute for Justice press release and corroborating reporting from Inside Investigator, Rome Sentinel, and the official Supreme Court docket No. 24-670.

Your Government Is Letting Pipeline Companies Rob Ranchers Twice

Len Hoffmann and his neighbors near Watford City, North Dakota didn't fight the pipeline. When WBI Energy showed up in 2018 with federal eminent domain authority under the Natural Gas Act and demanded a right-of-way across their ranches, the landowners accepted that the pipeline was going in — they just wanted to be paid fairly. WBI's opening offer was just over half the going market rate, so the ranchers did what the legal system is supposed to allow: they went to court. Three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees later, a federal judge ruled in their favor — the ranchers were right about the land value, and North Dakota law entitled them to have their legal costs covered by WBI. Then the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in and threw out the fee award. The court reasoned that because WBI was operating under federal eminent domain authority, state law didn't apply — and federal law doesn't require companies to reimburse legal costs. The result is a textbook Catch-22: accept whatever lowball number a pipeline company offers, or fight for a fair price in court and pay for the privilege out of your own pocket, effectively handing back a chunk of the settlement you just won. The ranchers, backed by the Institute for Justice, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Twelve state attorneys general filed briefs in support. As of late 2025, the Supreme Court was weighing whether to take the case.

Commentary: So to recap: a private company borrowed the government's power to force ranchers off their own land, offered them half of what it was worth, got caught, and then a federal court ruled the ranchers had to fund the entire three-year fight to prove it — out of their own settlement. The government handed a corporation a battering ram and then charged the people it hit for the damage. Remarkable system.

📰 https://www.agweb.com/news/business/farmland/lowballed-eminent-domain-nd-farmers-appeal-landmark-case-supreme-court

⚠️ This content was researched and written with AI assistance and may be fully AI-generated. All facts are sourced from the linked article and corroborating reporting from the Institute for Justice and North Dakota Monitor.