Ruling in a dispute that began nearly 30 years ago, a Maryland jury on Tuesday awarded more than $42 million to the would-be operators of a construction landfill who were blocked from using property bought for the project by Harford County officials.

The verdict is a win for DLA Piper, which relied on an unconstitutional “taking” claim under the state Constitution. The jury award included more than $30 million for the value of the 62-acre property and $15 million in prejudgment interest, said DLA Piper partner Brett Ingerman.

According to Ingerman and the complaint, the county initially approached Maryland Reclamation Associates Inc. in 1989 about opening a rubble fill, and the company found an ideal candidate at an old mined-out gravel pit.

“The county put it on their solid waste plan, approved the site plan, then our client bought the property,” Ingerman said.

“Then a new county executive came in, and he got elected running on a platform of never allowing a rubble-fill on that property,” Ingerman added.

The county passed a series of zoning laws to delay MRA's efforts to get its permits from the Maryland Department of the Environment, he said. “By the time my clients got their permit, the zoning had been changed to make it impossible to put the rubble-fill in.”

Ingerman said MRA President Richard Schafer spent years in litigation with the county, including multiple trips to Maryland Court of Appeals, which upheld the county's zoning decisions.

In 2013, MRA filed an inverse condemnation action in Harford County Circuit Court, arguing the county had rendered the property worthless through its “systematic, 20-year legislative assault.”

During a two-week trial before retired Baltimore City Circuit Judge John Howard, Ingerman and his DAL Piper co-counsel, Ellen Dew, Rachel Kessler and Nicole Kozlowski and Bob Cawood of Annapolis' Cawood & Cawood argued that MRA should receive the $30.8 million-plus value the property appraised for in 2010, plus prejudgment interest of 6 percent.

The county's team, led by Jefferson Blomquist of Baltimore's Funk & Bolton, included firm associates Justin Aronson and Elliott Hooper.

Blomquist said there will be an appeal and referred any questions to the county.

Tuesday morning, after a total of about three-and-a-half-hours, the jury found that the county's actions constituted a “regulatory taking” and awarded nearly $45.5 million.

In conversation with jurors afterward, Ingerwood said there was a general consensus: “Our client got screwed. That's what everyone said.

“The reason they were comfortable awarding that amount of money is because Rick Schafer has been fighting the county for 30 years,” he added.

Ingerman said he's resigned to an appeal. “But I will say this: If the Harford County Council had a shred of integrity, they'd pay the judgment,” he added.

Harford County spokeswoman Cindy Mumby said via email that there are “numerous appealable issues which the county intends to fully pursue at the appellate level. This continues to be active litigation which we cannot comment on further. “