Concerns About Use of Eminent Domain Sought

The co-chairs of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee have asked the MSBA to facilitate the collection of information about the exercise, or threatened exercise, of eminent domain power by both public bodies and those entities authorized to condemn property for specific uses. The Judiciary Committee has heard numerous complaints about the level of compensation when a government or a utility displaces a business. In addition, individual landowners have testified about their unhappiness with the process and their treatment when utilities prepare to exercise their statutory eminent domain power.

The MSBA has been asked to convene workshops to help identify specific problems and concerns with eminent domain laws and practices that landowners and their legal counsel have faced in the past and see looming in the future. If you would like to participate in such an effort, or have information you would like to share with the Judiciary Committee, please contact Julie Rowe (jrowe@mainebar.org).