Main street in any town, USA is predominantly populated by car dealerships with huge parking lots full of new and used cars. Then one day a large national retailer (like wal- mart) approaches the city council of any town and says, “ we are looking for a new place to build our headquarters, too bad there is no land available here.”
The city manger and the city council think about it for two seconds, and say , “ will, we can just condemn the car lots and sell the land to you,” and that’s exactly what the city des. The city condemns the land owned by the car dealerships and then sells the land to ther retailer. The public benefit? A large office complex will have much higher property value than a bunch of parking lots so more money flows to the city in form of higher property taxes. (The city manger also receives an bag of money ( $ 5,000) placed on his front porch one morning form an anonymous source.
Obviously, the ousted car lot owners do not view the city’s actions as altruistic. The ousted owners believe the city has stolen their property through the power of condemnation and eminent doman and given it to some one else
Can such conduct give rise to a Rico claim?
Why or why not ?
What other tort liabilities, if any?
They thought about it for 2 seconds...can that be a conspiracy? Other tort liabilities.
The city manager accepting a bribe and taking official action in behalf of the bribe.
The public benefit has to be more than higher taxes. Taxes could have been raised on the lots in the first place.