Part 17 (2/2)
Von Winkle agreed to join the suit.
”Look, I want to be sure I'm clear about our expectation here,” Bullock said. ”We want people who are going to hang in there and fight this and not sell a couple of months into the battle.”
”I won't let you down, Bull,” he said with a grin. ”I'll stick with you.”
With Von Winkle on board, Bullock picked up another plaintiff, Von Winkle's friend Rich Beyer. Though he didn't reside in New London, Beyer owned a business and two buildings in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood. A highly skilled, thirty-one-year-old building contractor, Beyer had renovated one of the buildings and converted it into rental apartments. He had been in the process of renovating the second building when the NLDC padlocked the front door, confiscated his tools and building materials, and tried to force him out after he refused the agency's take-it-or-leave-it offer. The heavy-handed tactics motivated Beyer to stand and fight beside the neighborhood's residents as a matter of principle.
Bullock couldn't have scripted a more suitable plaintiff than Beyer, a self-employed, hardworking guy dedicated to supporting his young family and minding his own business. But his business had been threatened by the NLDC's quest for his property.
Before leaving New London, Bullock lined up the rest of the plaintiffs.
Matt and Sue Dery agreed to join the suit. As the t.i.tleholder to the family home, Dery's elderly mother, Wilhelmina, would appear on the complaint. She had never lived elsewhere, and she had no interest in moving. Matt agreed to be her advocate in the fight.
Another elderly couple, Pasquale and Margherita Cristofaro, also pledged to sign on to the suit. They had moved to the neighborhood decades earlier-after losing their previous home to the city's eminent domain. Their son Michael agreed to speak on behalf of his parents in the lawsuit.
James and Laura Guretsky, a younger couple living on Susette's block, also signed on.
So did Byron Athenian, a mechanic with a wheelchair-bound granddaughter, who lived a block from Susette. He and his mother had a modest home near the Italian Dramatic Club.
Between them, the group owned fifteen of the twenty-two Fort Trumbull properties targeted by the NLDC. They were largely a lunch-pail group-a carpenter, an auto mechanic, a nurse, a self-employed businessman, and some senior citizens hoping to spend their final days in the homes they had occupied for decades. Most of them had dirt under their nails at the end of the workday.
Convinced the inst.i.tute had to take the case, Bullock returned to Was.h.i.+ngton and put together a final proposal to submit to his firm's board of directors for approval.
30.
WOLVES AT THE DOOR.
November 22, 2000 As a cold wind whipped off the water, Susette trudged up the front steps to her house. The sun had already set, though it was barely past 5 p.m. It had been a long day at the hospital. With aching feet and a sore back, she planned to spend the evening prepping food for the following day's Thanksgiving dinner.
Reaching for the doork.n.o.b, she spotted a paper taped to her door. She yanked it down and started reading. ”The CITY OF NEW LONDON, acting by the NEW LONDON DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (the 'Condemner'), has filed with the Clerk of the Superior Court for the Judicial District of New London at New London a Statement of Compensation relative to the taking of the property described in that statement.”
Time had run out. Her property had been condemned. The notice made it clear that she no longer owned her property; the NLDC did. ”Upon receipt of such return of notice,” she read, ”the Clerk of the Superior Court shall issue a Certificate of Taking. Upon the recording of the Certificate of Taking, t.i.tle to the premises described therein shall vest in the munic.i.p.ality.”
For the first time, she felt the city had invaded her home. Sometime earlier that day, she realized, a stranger had come on her property and affixed a notice to her door informing her that her home was no longer hers.
She rushed inside and called Von Winkle. He had also received condemnation papers. Others had, too. The elderly were scared. Von Winkle was ready to fight. So was Susette.
”What should we do?” she asked.
”Call up Bull,” Von Winkle said.
She hung up and called Bullock's office. He was working late. Breathless with anxiety, she described the condemnation notice.
”Tell me what it says,” Bullock said.
While she read, Bullock faced the oversized quote above his desk: ”'For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and ... my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his life. For his honor.'-Ayn Rand.”
Susette finished reading. ”Scott,” she said, ”the wolves are at our door.”
He promised to get right back to her. Furious, he hung up and marched down the hall to Dana Berliner's office.
”Now what?” she said, observing his fury.
”I am so p.i.s.sed right now,” he said and launched into a tirade about the condemnation notices. ”To do this the day before Thanksgiving is so outrageous.”
Berliner agreed.
”You know,” he said, ”everyone in the nation is going to recognize how outrageous this is.”
”It will only increase the sympathy that most people will have for the property owners,” Berliner said.
”The NLDC doesn't even have the decency to treat them with respect.”
”Obviously not,” she said.
”This has to stop! It has to stop!” he said. ”I want to spread the word to as many people as possible about how wrong this is. This is a perfect example of the human toll of eminent-domain abuse.”
Bullock and Berliner spent most of Thanksgiving weekend working. Both single, both determined, and both workaholics, they formulated a game plan for getting the condemnation actions dismissed and saving the homes. They listed the immediate tasks: * Draft the legal complaint.* Develop a background paper on the case, discussing the case history and the plaintiffs' background.* Generate a media advisory.* Produce a news release for distribution on the day the lawsuit would be filed.* Plan an event in New London to accompany the filing.
All of it added up to filing a precedent-setting lawsuit against the City of New London and the NLDC. They had a lot to do and very little time. They focused first on the complaint.
”This could possibly have a number of causes of action,” Bullock said.
They started with the obvious. Under the Fifth Amendment, the government must have a public use or purpose when taking private property under eminent domain. Susette and her neighbors were convinced their properties were being taken to accommodate Pfizer or some other private party. Bullock and Berliner agreed.
”Plaintiffs' property is slated for redevelopment not for public use, but rather as a health club, office s.p.a.ce, and yet unnamed and unspecified development projects,” Bullock typed under the heading ”FIRST COUNT” in the complaint. ”Plaintiffs challenge this abuse of eminent domain authority as a violation of the Connecticut and United States Const.i.tutions.”
They decided to point the finger at Pfizer in the complaint. ”The development was to enhance the new Pfizer facility that was being built next to the Fort Trumbull neighborhood,” Bullock added. ”Under the Connecticut and United States Const.i.tution, private property may only be taken through eminent domain for 'public use.'”
Bullock wanted to include another claim: equal protection. The right to own, use, and possess property is protected under the U.S. Const.i.tution. In addition to requiring a legitimate or compelling reason for depriving someone of property rights, the equal-protection clause protected against discriminatory treatment. The city had deprived Susette and her neighbors of their property, while allowing the Italian Dramatic Club to keep its property. The city, in Bullock's eyes, had treated similarly situated people differently. Under some circ.u.mstances, unequal treatment was actually permissible, but the government had to show a rational basis for discriminatory treatment.
”By permitting one property owner in the plan (the Italian Dramatic Club) to retain t.i.tle and possession,” Bullock typed, ”while denying the ability of Plaintiffs to retain t.i.tle and possession of their property, Defendants treat similarly situated people differently.”
Berliner pointed out that the court took equal-protection claims more seriously when race or ethnicity was the basis for discrimination. The Fort Trumbull homeowners had not faced discrimination based on skin color or ethnicity; they simply lacked political connections to the NLDC's decision makers.
Bullock insisted the claim was still worth raising. ”It points out how absurd the NLDC's decision rationale was,” he said. ”This is a blatant example of them doing favors for those in power and neglecting those without political clout or influence.”
Berliner agreed.
Bullock wasn't through. He insisted on a third count against the city based on the fact that taking homes wasn't necessary for the NLDC to complete its munic.i.p.al-development plan. The city had identified Susette's block as Parcel 4-A. Besides Susette's home, all of Von Winkle's properties and the Derys' properties were within Parcel 4-A. Unlike most of the other parcels within the ninety-acre development area, Parcel 4-A had not been designated for any specific construction. As a result, Bullock reasoned, it wasn't even necessary for the NLDC to take it.
<script>