District may be assessed costs — Truckenbrods could get legal fees and other payments
“The Beloit School District may have to pay not only its own court costs and lawyers’ fees in its eminent domain case, but also all lawyers’ fees and costs for Anna Truckenbrod.
Wisconsin state statute 32.28 (3) says litigation expenses shall be awarded to the condemnee if the condemnee appeals an award of the condemnation commission which exceeds the jurisdictional offer or the highest written offer prior to the jurisdictional offer by at least $700 and at least 15 percent.
Litigation expenses are defined in the statute as the “sum of the costs, disbursements and expenses, including reasonable attorney, appraisal and engineering fees necessary to prepare for or participate in actual or anticipated proceedings before the condemnation commissioners, board of assessment or any court under this chapter.”
In the case of the Truckenbrod land, the Rock County Condemnation Commission awarded a compensation of $203,000. The jury verdict delivered Wednesday set the compensation at $382,000 for the 4.08 acres at 2570 Milwaukee Road. That’s an increase of $179,000 or 88 percent, easily surpassing the 15 percent threshold established in the statutes.
The school district has 20 days during which it could file a post-verdict motion in an attempt to appeal the jury’s decision.
The Truckenbrods had rejected the district’s final offer for their land at 2570 Milwaukee Road in September of 2013. The eminent domain proceedings then went before a Condemnation Commission. The Truckenbrods filed an appeal regarding the three-member Rock County Condemnation Commission’s award of just compensation of $203,000 for their land, a decision rendered on Oct. 3, 2013.
Ground was broken for a new intermediate school at the corner of Milwaukee Road and Lee Lane on Tuesday. The school is being built as part of the passage of the district’s facilities referendum in April of 2012.
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Gavan, Hillary. Beloit Daily News 24 May 2015.