Expropriation ruling explains landowner’s burden to prove severance damages to a “legal certainty.”

On November 8, the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeals added to the relatively sparse body of appellate rulings in pipeline expropriation matters. In an unpublished opinion, the court affirmed that landowners whose property is expropriated must prove their entitlement to severance damages to a “legal certainty.” Under Louisiana law, owners of expropriated property can seek just compensation for the property taken. In addition, landowners can seek “severance damages” above and beyond the value of the expropriated property when the landowner has been deprived of the full potential of future development of the property due to the taking. In Enterprise Products Operating, LLC, v. Southwood Terminal, L.L.C., Enterprise expropriated part of a large tract of undeveloped riverfront property for an NGL pipeline. The pipeline would then cross the Mississippi River, burrowing more than 100 feet below the riverbed. At trial, the landowner sought millions in…

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