Bloomfield condemnation case ends; Mo. high court refuses to hear appeal

A Bloomfield Road condemnation case finally has come to an end after the Missouri Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the City of Cape Girardeau.

The high court issued its judgment Tuesday.

Deputy city manager Molly Mehner said city officials are disappointed the Supreme Court won't consider the appeal.

A car passes Elmwood Drive while driving along County Road 205 on Tuesday, March 5, 2019, in Cape Girardeau.Jacob Wiegand ~ Southeast Missourian

She acknowledged the court's action puts an end to the nearly three-year-old case. "We have exhausted all of our appeals at this point," Mehner said.

In March, a three-judge panel of the Eastern District Court of Appeals upheld a trial judge's decision that the city must pay "heritage value" compensation to the owners of a Bloomfield Road property.

The case involved the city's taking of Elmwood Farms land along Bloomfield Road for street improvements and construction of a walking trail.

Attorney James F. Waltz, who represented property owners Patrick and Cheryl Evans, had argued trial Judge Ron Fulton was correct in ordering the city to pay an additional $45,000, pushing the total compensation to $135,000.

Waltz said Wednesday the city also will have to pay annual interest of 9% on the added compensation, dating back to the trial court's decision in October 2017.

This case set legal precedent on how heritage value should be applied under state law, Waltz said.

In the appeals court ruling, Chief Judge Lisa Page wrote state law requires the trial court to assess heritage value if the taking "prevents the owner from utilizing property" in the same manner it was used before the taking.

Judge Fulton's interpretation of the law "was consistent with the plain language of the statute," Page wrote.

In the nine-page ruling, Page wrote the city and Elmwood Farms' owners previously had agreed, as part of a settlement in the original condemnation case, to allow the issue of heritage value to be decided by a judge.

The city agreed to pay $90,000 in compensation, but opposed paying an additional amount for heritage value.

Under a state law, enacted in 2006, a court must approve a 50 percent increase in the condemnation payment if it is found the land had heritage value.

In order to qualify, a property owner must show the land has been in their family for at least 50 years.

Both sides agreed in this case the Spanish-land-grant property was settled by a Cape Girardeau pioneer family and has been in the same family for more than 200 years.

But the city contended the taking of land for reconstruction and widening of Bloomfield Road and the addition of a recreation trail did not prevent the property owners from using the land in "substantially the same manner" as before the July 2016 taking of the land.

But Waltz said there was plenty of evidence offered at trial that relocation of the road and construction of a recreational trail altered the historic site.

"Nobody bought it," Waltz said of the city's argument.

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