On the heels of its decision in the Atlantic Yards takings case, the Court of Appeals upheld the exercise of the power of eminent domain to condemn private property to be developed by Columbia University for campus expansion and other uses. In another case, the Court disagreed with the conclusion of the U.S. Supreme Court that a canine sniff of the exterior of a vehicle does not constitute a search. Finally, the Court addressed the issue of which parties are in privity with a decedent’s estate planning lawyer and therefore may assert a malpractice claim against him. The Court held that an estate representative may assert a malpractice claim, but in dicta stated that beneficiaries and other third parties may not. We respectfully submit that the latter conclusion may in some circumstances lead to unfair results, as discussed below.

Taking for Campus Expansion

Last year, the Court deferred to the Empire State Development Corporation’s (ESDC) determination that the site of the Atlantic Yards development project was “blighted,” and upheld the condemnation of private property on that site, in Matter of Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corp., 13 N.Y.3d 511 (2009). In Matter of Kaur v. New York State Urban Development Corp., the Court again applied its broad interpretation of the power of eminent domain and the doctrine of deference to the conclusions of a “quasi-legislative” agency to uphold a condemnation of property for development by Columbia University, a non-profit institution.

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