California Supreme Court to Review Pre-Condemnation Entry

Updating our recent entry on the Property Reserve case (here), the California Supreme Court has decided to review the Appellate Court’s finding that the Water Resource Board’s preliminary entry constituted a taking under California’s law of the eminent domain.  The appellate court ruling meant that the State was going to have to pay just compensation to thousands of property owners in order to conduct invasive preliminary testing on the viability of a tunnel to transport fresh water from Northern California to the arid South.  The California Supreme Court limited review to the following questions:

(1) Do the geological testing activities proposed by the Department of Water Resources constitute a taking? (2) Do the environmental testing activities set forth in the February 22, 2011, entry order constitute a taking? (3) If so, do the precondemnation entry statutes (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 1245.010-1245.060) provide a constitutionally valid eminent domain proceeding for the taking?

Full text of the Order is available here.

Looking forward to the briefs and decision.