Bryan Bowers and his business partner, Mike Licata, planned to build medical office space across from a new hospital in downtown Utica, New York. The Oneida County Industrial Development Agency (OCIDA) nixed that plan by agreeing to take the property so a competing business next door could use it for a parking lot—a land grab that a state appeals court approved last February.
The U.S. Supreme Court invited such abuses with its 2005 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, which blessed the use of eminent domain to promote economic development by transferring property from one private owner to another. Bowers' case offers the justices another chance to revisit that widely criticized decision, which endangered property rights by letting government officials reassign them to politically favored businesses.
