A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Analysis of the Use of Eminent Domain to Create a Leasehold

Abstract

Therapeutic jurisprudence provides an excellent tool to analyze and guide the development of the law on the use of eminent domain to create leaseholds. The objective of these takings is for the condemnor to become a tenant under a “lease,” rather than the fee simple owner.I am perhaps the only scholar who has written extensively on the topic of takings to create a leasehold. In a previous work, I provided an exhaustive analysis of the conclusion that government can use eminent domain to create a leasehold.That work went on to conclude that there are circumstances in which government should use eminent domain to create a leasehold, but that difficult problems can arise in such takings. They necessitate refinements in arriving at just compensation. That work also concluded that there is at least one situation inwhich government should not be allowed to use eminent domain to create a leasehold. I labeled such takings Kelo-type takings, wherein the government uses its power of eminent domain with the objective of creating a leasehold that it will then transfer to a private party for private use. My argument that the use of such Kelo-type takings to create leaseholds should not be allowed was based primarily on public policy considerations. I concluded that the problems arising from takings that create private leaseholds are much worse than those encountered in situations such as Kelo, in which government acquires a fee simple from the condemnee and then makes a transfer to a private party, because the form disrupts the social contract between government and the people.Any such conclusion demands reexamination on theoretical grounds, which is done in this Article.1 In order to re-examine the question, it formally extends the jurisprudential philosophy of therapeutic justice to eminent domain in general and specifically to takings to create leaseholds. The principles underlying therapeutic jurisprudence, as well as the illuminating insights derived from its application, confirm the prior conclusion.