Beach Season: Appellate Court Clarifies Motion Procedure in a Condemnation Case
In late February 2024, the N.J. Appellate Division decided on an appeal involving a Point Pleasant condemnation case where a property owner filed a barrage of pre-trial and post-judgment motions. All of the owner’s motions were denied by the trial judge. After hearing arguments, the Appellate Division ultimately affirmed the rulings.
The justification for the government’s taking in this case dates to October 2012 when Hurricane Sandy struck the New Jersey shore. Before Hurricane Sandy, much of the beachfront property was privately owned. Private property owners typically maintained and protected their property by pushing sand that had eroded from winter storms. In the years following the hurricane, the Army Corps of Engineers and New Jersey Dep’t of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) implemented a dune project from the Manasquan Inlet to the Barnegat Inlet. Between 2015 and 2017, the NJDEP commenced hundreds of condemnation cases to seize perpetual “Storm Damage Reduction Easements” (SDRE) that converted exclusive private property to non-exclusive land subject to the dominant rights of the State. In these instances, private beaches became public beaches as part of the government project.
This case soon followed suit when the NJDEP took an SDRE on 3.723 acres of beachfront property in Point Pleasant. The SDRE included the construction of a dune that averaged 178 feet long and approximately twenty-two feet high. Before the jury trial determining the compensation owed, the property owner filed a motion to bar NJDEP’s appraisal on net opinion grounds. The trial judge denied the dispositive motion because it was “the eve of trial” and such a request was untimely. After a four-day trial, the jury awarded the owner $75,245 in compensation for the taking. After that, the owner filed post-judgment motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), or alternatively, for a new trial or additur. The trial judge denied these motions as well due to the lack of supporting facts and evidence.
On appeal, the owner contended that the trial judge erred in denying the pre-trial and post-judgment motions. First, since the owner’s pre-trial motion sought to strike the primary conclusion of the NJDEP’s expert on the “eve of trial,” the appellate Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling and held that the motion was untimely because it should have been filed as a summary judgment motion and made “returnable no less than thirty days before trial unless the court otherwise orders for good cause shown. R. 4:46-1.” Second, the Court affirmed the trial judge’s post-judgment rulings because the testimony demonstrated that the NJDEP’s “appraisal nowhere near approximated a net opinion. The expert methodically explained the factors she considered and rejected, the data sources she relied upon, and how she balanced the facts against the data to arrive at an opinion of value.” Slip op. at 14. The Court found that it was for the jury to accept or reject the expert’s methodology, rationale, and the thoroughness of the appraisal. Finally, the Court was unconvinced that the jury speculated or was prejudiced by statements made during oral summations because it “awarded defendant multiples of the just compensation amount the DEP argued was appropriate.” Id. at 19.
The Appellate Division’s decision here reaffirms just how difficult it is to overturn a jury verdict due to unfavorable motion and evidentiary rulings. For over 55 years, McKirdy, Riskin, Olson & DellaPelle, P.C. has concentrated its practice in this special area of the law and has earned a reputation for persistently defending its clients’ property rights. Our firm has successfully handled a broad range of eminent domain cases involving almost every type of property, including commercial buildings, industrial properties, development land, single and multi-family residential properties, hotels/casinos, oil/ gas pipelines, water rights and beachfront property, airports, farmland, and many more. If you are confronted with the threat of eminent domain, please contact McKirdy, Riskin, Olson & DellaPelle, P.C. to speak with an experienced attorney. To view the entire 3.723-Acres of Land in the Borough of Point Pleasant Beach decision, click here.
