Couple Win $1.73 Million in Eminent-Domain Appeal

A state court this week rejected Garden Grove’s appeal of a jury’s award in an eminent domain case in which the city evicted a couple from their property after offering them less than what they had paid for it.

Thursday’s action by the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana means the $1.07-million jury award to Romanian immigrants Daniela and Dionisi Goia will increase to $1.73 million, mostly in fees that Garden Grove will have to pay the couple’s lawyer, John C. Murphy.

“This is a unique case,” Garden Grove City Manager George Tindall said. Further appeals are unlikely, he said.

Murphy said the Goias purchased an acre of commercial land near Garden Grove and Harbor boulevards in 1990, paying $778,000 for the parcel and another $100,000 for an auto-repair business that had about 2,000 customers a year.

In 1997, when Garden Grove announced plans to redevelop the area with low- and moderate-income housing, the couple were offered $640,000 for the property, Murphy said. The Goias rejected the city’s offer and were eventually evicted through eminent domain laws, which give governments the right to take private property for public use if the owner is justly compensated.

“My clients were shocked and bewildered. They knew that in communist Romania the government could just come in and take your property away, but they couldn’t understand how that could happen here,” Murphy said.

The couple sued, and a Superior Court jury awarded them $1.07 million. That amount has grown by more than $60,000 in interest accumulated while the city appealed, Murphy said.

The Goias’ parcel and four more acres that bordered it were sold by the city to a private developer, Olsen Development Co., for $2.5 million, Murphy said.

City Manager Tindall said the price paid by Olsen for the parcels was a “discount rate,” but he said the properties were sold with the understanding that “they would build low- and moderate-income housing for our community.”

“A clause in the city’s contract with Olsen allows us to get a share of Olsen’s profit from the development if the company makes a windfall profit,” Tindall said.