The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that a municipality violated state law and constitutional limits when it condemned two privately owned parcels of land to trade them to a developer, holding that the town never intended to put the seized properties to public use.
Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, writing for the court, said the record showed that Jackson Township had taken two real estate lots through eminent domain only for the purpose of exchanging them for another property, a move the court found unsupported by the state's eminent domain statutes or federal precedent.
Government may take private land only when the intended use serves the public, the opinion said.
Counsel for Getzel Bee, Richard P. DeAngelis Jr. of Connell Foley LLP, hailed the court's ruling.
"Jackson cavalierly invoked its eminent domain power to take private property without respecting the constitutional and statutory limitations on the exercise of that power as recognized by the Supreme Court," DeAngelis said in an email to Law360 on Monday. "This decision provides another level of protection for property owners confronted with eminent domain abuse."
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