Judge rules for Floridians who lost trees

December 11, 2007

A Palm Beach, Fla., circuit court judge has ruled in favor of homeowners who lost citrus trees when the state tried to halt the spread of canker disease.

Canker is a bacterial disease that destroys fruit trees, the Palm Beach post reported Monday.

Judge Robin Rosenberg said the state's destruction of 66,468 trees during a disease-eradication program constituted a "taking" under the Florida Constitution and therefore required "full and just compensation."

Rosenberg's ruling was issued on behalf of homeowners whose symptomless trees were destroyed during the state's program, which required the removal of all citrus trees within a 1,900-foot radius of an infected tree.

The case will go to trial March 31 to decide the amount compensation due to homeowners.

Florida originally provided $100 Wal-Mart gift cards for the first tree cut down, and then gave homeowners $55 in cash for subsequent trees, The Washington Post said.

Attorneys for the homeowners calculate the value of the lost trees at anywhere from $350 to $1,000 each.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International


Rank 3 /5 (2 votes)
Tags

Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

Australian women reject 'I love u' texts

Australian women may have embraced the digital era, but they prefer a face-to-face declaration of affection to an "I love u" text and find men addicted to their mobile phones a major turnoff.

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created 26 minutes ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

A frank discussion of the power law and linking correlation to causation

(PhysOrg.com) -- Michael Stumpf a mathematics professor at Imperial College in London, and Mason Porter a lecturer at Oxford have teamed together to write and publish a perspective piece in Science regarding the in ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Feb 10, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 11 | with audio podcast report

US workers are 'giving away the store,' costing firms billions

Nearly 70 percent of the nation's service employees give away free goods and services – from hamburgers to cable TV – costing companies billions of dollars a year, according to a groundbreaking study.

Other Sciences / Economics & Business

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (5) | comments 11

Employers feel no love for unscrupulous practice of 'service sweethearting'

A new study led by two Florida State University marketing professors finds that some frontline service employees who are rewarded for hikes in customer loyalty and satisfaction also may engage in "service ...

Other Sciences / Economics & Business

created Feb 10, 2012 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 10

New insights into how to correct false knowledge

The abundance of false information available on the Internet, in movies and on TV has created a big challenge for educators.

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Feb 07, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 9 | with audio podcast


Japan's Fukushima reactor may be reheating: operator

Temperature readings at one of the crippled Fukushima nuclear reactors have risen above Japan's stringent new safety standard but there was no immediate danger, its operator said Sunday.

Integrated pest management recommendations for the southern pine beetle

The southern pine beetle, Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmermann, is a chronic insect pest within pine forests in the southeastern United States. Under favorable environmental and host conditions, it is an agg ...

Botox developer rues missing out on billions

Botox developer Alan Scott says he rues the day he handed over rights to the best-selling wrinkle-smoothing drug to a US company for just $4.5 million, saying he might have become a billionaire.

Many lung cancer patients get radiation therapy that may not prolong their lives

A new study has found that many older lung cancer patients get treatments that may not help them live longer. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings suggest that p ...

Young adults allowed to stay on parents' health insurance have improved access to care

Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that laws permitting children to stay on their parents' health insurance through age 26 result in improved access to health care compared to states without those ...

Cancer rate 4 times higher in children with juvenile arthritis

New research reports that incident malignancy among children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is four times higher than in those without the disease. Findings now available in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal publis ...