Monthly Archives: November 2018

Bye, bye General Motors Poletown Plant

Remember the Poletown case? Sure you do. That was the infamous decision of a divided Michigan Supreme Court, that permitted the eminent domain taking of the Detroit community of Poletown in order to raze it and turn over its site to General Motors for a new Cadillac plant. The taking displaced an unoffending, diverse community, razing hundreds of homes, businesses and churches, as well as a major hospital, in order to subsidize GM which threatened to build this facility in Ohio, unless Detroit ponied up. It did. This caper cost the taxpayers some $200 million and it spared GM having to pay its full tax share. It was supposed to produce thousands of jobs. But it didn’t. By the time the dispatch about closing this plant came from the Detroit Free Press, there were only 1500 employees at that plant instead the 5000 that were promised.

See https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/john-gallagher/2018/11/26/gm-detroit-hamtramck-plant-closing/2114067002/ (cut and paste this link in your browser).

And of course, as you may remember, eventually GM filed for bankruptcy in the 2008 Great Recession anyway and defaulted on a bunch of bonds held by individual investors trying to save for their old age. In a case of too little and too late, in due course the Michigan Supreme Court came to its senses and overruled the Poletown case in Wayne County v. Hathcock.

And so Detroit joins the list of similar venues in which much was promised but little or nothing delivered after wasting fortunes in public funds and grossly undercompensating the displaced condemnee-owners of land in the path of such projects.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Your faithful servant, along with the late Bert Burgoyne of Detroit, and Toby Brigham the lion of Miami, were counsel in that case, representing the Sisters of Mercy, owners of that taken hospital.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In spite of all the kvetching and bitching, it’s time to pause and give thanks for our good fortune in having been granted the privilege of living in America. So enjoy your festive food, and do your shopping if you are strong enough to handle it, but as you do all that find time to give thanks.

The Knick Case — Big News from the Big Court

Calling all takings junkies!

The US Supreme Court has ordered re-argument in Knick v. Township of Scott, and ordered the parties to file additional short letter-briefs by the end of November. Our colleague, Robert Thomas has put the Court’s full order in his blog www.inversecondemnation.com. So if you have an interest in regulatory takings, get over to that blog and get it straight from the horse’s mouth. We recommend you do so, because the re-argument order goes into some detail as to what information the Court wants. Mr. Thomas provides a helpful explanation and commentary.

We presume that this time Justice Kavanaugh will participate in the re-argument, so the court will be up to full strength in the re-argument. For a copy of the full court order restoring The Knick case to the calendar go to https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/110218zr_bpm1.pdf