In Susette Kelo’s case, she found a modest home that she could afford with a great water view.
Susette Kelo, a registered nurse, purchased her dream home on East Street in Fort Trumbull in July 1997. From her dining room window on a clear day she can see Montauk Point at the tip of Long Island. When Susette first purchased the cute little Victorian, it was so overgrown with weeds that she literally needed a hatchet to reach the front door.
Susette Kelo, a registered nurse, purchased her dream home on East Street in Fort Trumbull in July 1997. From her dining room window on a clear day she can see Montauk Point at the tip of Long Island.
Susette Kelo's famous "little pink house," which became a nationally known symbol of the case that bears her name. Today is the 15th anniversary of Kelo v. City of New London, one of the most controversial property rights decisions in the history of the Supreme Court.
$442,000The city agreed that Kelo's house would not be demolished; instead, it would be moved from 8 East Street to another New London neighborhood. It was later disclosed that Susette Kelo received $442,000 to end her fight. The Kelo house stands alone on East Street, within view of new construction to the southwest.
Majority and concurrence. On June 23, 2005, the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, ruled in favor of the City of New London. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
Facts of the case The property owners argued the city violated the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, which guaranteed the government will not take private property for public use without just compensation. Specifically, the property owners argued taking private property to sell to private developers was not public use.
Pfizer said it would pull 1,400 jobs out of New London within two years and move most of them a few miles away to its campus in Groton to cut costs.
Justice O'ConnorJustice O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and justices Scalia and Thomas, wrote the dissenting opinion. Justice Thomas also wrote a separate dissent.
The Supreme Court ruled on Kelo v. New London in 2005. The Court agreed with the city of New London and held that the government could take privately-owned land in order to turn it over to a private developer.
Homeowners and residents were kicked out so that a private developer could build…more homes. Pfizer, which received major tax breaks to move into New London and was the intended beneficiary of the promised private development project in Fort Trumbull, closed their New London facility right before its tax breaks ended.
Just Compensation Requirement: In Kohl v. United States, 91 U.S. 367 (1875), the Supreme Court held that the government may seize property through the use of eminent domain, as long as it appropriates just compensation to the owner of the property.
Why did Kelo and the other holdout property owners say the city was acting unconstitutionally? The city justified its plans by saying that the new buildings would result in economic development.
The court ruled in favor of New London and its use of eminent domain to seize the properties. The pink cottage owned by Susette Kelo, lead plaintiff in the case, was on East Street. The land has been vacant since Kelo's home was relocated and the other homes were condemned and demolished.
New LondonThe Kelo House, also known as the Little Pink House, was built in 1890 in a residential area of New London by John Bishop, a prominent local carpenter. It had various owners after Carpenter's death in 1893 and few years later was moved to the Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London.
This past November, however, Pfizer announced it will close its New London research and development headquarters. This marks the end of an eminent domain error. New London created a redevelopment plan that gave land to Pfizer at a nominal cost and provided free environmental cleanup to the site.
The Dery family, up the street from Susette, had lived in Fort Trumbull since 1895;
The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision against Kelo and her neighbors sparked a nation-wide backlash against eminent domain abuse, leading eight state supreme courts and 43 state legislatures to strengthen protections for property rights. Moreover, Kelo educated the public about eminent domain abuse, and polls consistently show that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to Kelo and support efforts to change the law to better protect home and small business owners. Moreover, since the Kelo ruling in June 2005, citizen activists have defeated 44 projects that sought to abuse eminent domain for private development.
Moreover, since the Kelo ruling in June 2005, citizen activists have defeated 44 projects that sought to abuse eminent domain for private development. Meanwhile, in New London, the Fort Trumbull project has been a dismal failure.
The book was also adapted into an award-winning feature film Little Pink House, which debuted in 2018, starring Catherine Keener as Susette Kelo, and is available to stream online. “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property.
In 1998, the Institute successfully defended Vera Coking, an elderly widow from Atlantic City, against the attempts by a New Jersey state agency to condemn her house of more than 35 years for Donald Trump’s casino across the street. 21.
Susette Kelo is not alone. All across the country, state and local governments are abusing the power of eminent domain to take private homes and businesses for the benefit of other, more politically favored private businesses who promise more jobs and taxes.
Susette Kelo stands outside her home, which has been condemned by the state of Connecticut, June 27, 2005 in the Fort Trumbull area of New London, Connecticut . (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) In 1781, a force of British troops under the command of the turncoat Benedict Arnold landed in the city of New London, Connecticut.
As for Susette Kelo’s little pink house, it was ultimately saved from destruction, disassembled and moved to another street. There it stands today, a monument to the incredible neighbors who, like the patriots of 220 years before, took on despotism and very nearly won.
Once a great martyr of the Revolution, Fort Trumbull has since become the site of one of the most hated Supreme Court rulings in history. Fifteen years ago this month, the infamous Kelo v. New London decision was handed down, which affirmed the city’s right to seize private property and hand it to a developer.
The story begins in the late 1990s, in Connecticut’s capital of Hartford, where a young and ambitious Republican governor named John Rowland was eager for a success story in a deep blue state. To that end, he looked southeast to New London, where the recent closure of a major submarine research lab had left the city economically listless. Reluctant to collaborate with local Democrats, he decided instead to work through the New London Development Corporation (NLDC) to revive the area. The NLDC, with Rowland’s blessing, went hunting for developers. It wasn’t long before they had a bite: Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, agreed to build a massive new headquarters in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood. At the groundbreaking ceremony in 1998, Rowland portentously declared, “Years from now, this will be a case study in how to revive a community.”
Parker, the Court unanimously approved of Washington, D.C.’s seizing of property in a deeply blighted neighborhood, while in Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, it allowed Hawaii to take land on Oahu that was concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few.
Both sides then appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court, which upheld all the seizures in a contentious four-to-three decision.
So did Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the opinion.
Back in New London, where the Kelo case originated, the condemned property—on which fifteen homes once stood—remains empty, used only by feral cats. The economic development project for which the homes were taken was a dubious proposition to begin with, and eventually fell part. Despite a variety of proposals since then, ...
But it comes at the cost of downplaying the stories of the others, some of whom probably suffered even greater anguish than she did. For example, Wilhelmina Dery , who was in her eighties, had lived in the same house her whole life, and adamantly refused to leave.
As bad as the Kelo experience was for the victims, it did bolster the cause of property rights in the United States , and to some extent, even around the world. The case helped highlight abusive takings and land seizures as far away as China and Korea. A recent decision by the Israeli Supreme Court offers a narrow interpretation of Kelo, so as to avoid having to use it as a precedent justifying the expropriation of Palestinian property for the purpose of facilitating its use by Jewish settlers on the West Bank.
Susette Kelo's famous "little pink house," which became a nationally known symbol of the case that bears her name . Today is the 15th anniversary of Kelo v. City of New London, one ...
A recent decision by the Israeli Supreme Court offers a narrow interpretation of Kelo, so as to avoid having to use it as a precedent justifying the expropriation of Palestinian property for the purpose of facilitating its use by Jewish settlers on the West Bank.
For understandable dramatic reasons, the movie—like much of the media coverage of the litigation – focuses mostly on Susette Kelo, the plaintiff who was listed first, and thereby gave her name to the case.
After retiring from the Court, Justice Stevens - to his credit - actually admitted he had made an "embarrassing to acknowledge" error in his interpretation of precedent; he even generously cited me as a "scholarly commentator" who "caught this issue shortly after we decided Kelo ," in an article I published in 2007. I should emphasize that Justice Stevens continued to believe he got the bottom-line decision right, albeit his new rationale for it was completely different from that defended in the majority opinion. Regardless, there aren't many major Supreme Court decisions where the author of the majority opinion actually admitted he made a serious error in his analysis.