Case Law Summaries

State of New Jersey v. Cular

• Opinion Date: February 9, 2001
• Real Property Law
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CONDEMNATION; NEGOTIATIONS—Where bona fide negotiations have already taken place without avail, a condemning authority seeking to slightly increase the amount of property to be taken does not have to reopen negotiations if the change in the value of the property is also slight.

Because the intersection of a state highway and a railroad crossing had been the scene of a number of accidents, the State proposed to realign and reconstruct the highway. After the project was finished, the highway would cross over the railroad on a bridge, eliminating the grade crossing. Although the State did not require any of a particular owner’s property for the physical construction of the highway, “its proposed plans would have the result of isolating defendant’s property beneath the elevated highway.” It would also have left the property landlocked, without any access to a public road. Accordingly, the State filed a complaint to condemn the property. It then filed an amended complaint increasing the size of the property that it wished to condemn and increasing its offer of compensation. The property owner contended that the State failed to conduct a bona fide negotiations before filing its amended complaint. Where a government agency fails to engage in bona fide negotiations with a property owner, dismissal of a condemnation complaint is the remedy. In this case there was no question that the State intended to take the owner’s entire parcel. The difference in the size of the parcel contained in the first complaint and that contained in the amended complaint was slight. Consequently, the difference in valuation was slight. On that basis, the Court held that “the difference between the State’s two appraisals was ‘relatively immaterial’ and thus had no real impact on [the property owner’s] ability to conduct good-faith negotiations with the State.”

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