Supreme Court Declines Hearing Of Eminent Domain Case

"Without comment, the justices declined to hear a case from Port Chester in Westchester County, N.Y., that challenged the village's use of eminent domain in a dispute between a property owner and a private company designated as the developer of a run-down 27-acre urban renewal area."

"The redevelopment plan, adopted by Port Chester in 1999, envisioned a retail area that would include a drugstore. In 2002, the developer, G & S Port Chester LLC, announced that a Walgreens store would be part of the project. But Bart Didden, the owner of the parcel where the store was to sit, had by that time separately entered into a lease with a competing drugstore chain, CVS."

When the city sided with its developer and told the property owner his land would be acquired through eminent domain, "he brought a lawsuit in 2004 arguing that Port Chester's condemnation of the property was not for a true 'public use,' the phrase that identifies the constitutionally permissible use of the eminent domain power, but rather for the private financial benefit of the developer."