Abrams

In this action in eminent domain both parties have appealed from a judgment which, inter alia, awarded compensation to the condemnee, a pharmacist, for the value of certain “ethical drugs” located on the condemned real property but refused to award any compensation for loss of business goodwill resulting from the taking. In dealing with the questions thus presented we are required to address a broad question of constitutional law which, to borrow the image used by one learned commentator in a similar context, has proved remarkably “resistant to analytical efforts.” (See Sax, Takings, Private Property and Public Rights (1971) 81 Yale L.J. 149, 149.) Simply stated, the question is this: When and to what extent do the state and federal Constitutions require that the “just compensation” to be paid upon the taking or damaging of private property for public use include payment over and above the fair market value of the property taken on account of business losses sustained by the condemnee as a result of the taking?

Sixty years ago we answered this question in decisive fashion, and thereby stated the rule which presently applies in this state and, generally speaking, in all…