The Supreme Judicial Court, the state’s highest appellate court, reversed a trial court judgment in favor of the land owner who argued that the town was exercising its eminent domain authority in bad faith solely to block Northeastern’s planned development. 

The court concluded “that on the record before us Northeastern has no reasonable expectation of proving that the town's taking is invalid under” relevant case law. The court noted that “the town's stated purpose for the taking is a proper public purpose in accord with past actions by the town evincing interest in the area of the taking, and the extreme circumstances of” prior case law was not present here. 

Congratulations to the MMLA Amicus Committee, chaired by Brandon Moss, who worked with the Massachusetts Municipal Association and K-P Law on filing a joint Amicus brief.  MMLA acknowledges the great work done by Ali T. DiMatteo, Prasanna Rajasekaran, Jeffrey T. Blake, Brandon Moss, James B. Lampke and others on the amicus filing.

Click here for a copy of the decision.