Check out the new law review article, Gideon Kanner, “[Un]equal Justice Under Law”: The Invidiously Disparate Treatment of American Property Owners in Taking Cases, 40 Loyola of L.A. Law Review 1065 (Spring 2007). It discusses various anomalies and inconsistencies in eminent domain and inverse condemnation law, and the raw injustice in the treatment of American property owners whose property is being taken ostensibly for “public use,” but often for private enrichment. For example, did you know that American property owners whose property is taken are not entitled to due process of law? It’s true. See pp. 1083-1087 of the above article.
The article is based on the author’s lecture at the 2006 annual Brigham-Kanner symposium on property rights at the William & Mary College School of Law in Williamsburg, Virginia.
It concludes: “It was said of the Holy Roman Empire that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. In like veim, it can be said of eminent domain law requiring the payment of ‘just compensation’ upon taking of private property for public use, that the use need not be public and the compensation is not just.” pp. 1133-1134.
Check it out.