In fact, the city of Somerville must pay $28 million to the former owners of the Washington Street property it seized in 2019, according to a recent court ruling, which states that when the city took control of the land, It confirmed an earlier judgment that the court had significantly underpaid for the land. against the owner’s wishes.
Wednesday’s ruling by the Massachusetts Court of Appeals came after a lower court found the four-acre property was worth $35.3 million, an amount lower than the approximately $8.8 million paid by the Somerville Redevelopment Authority. is also a fairly large amount.
George McLaughlin, an attorney for the former property owners, said in an interview Sunday that they “feel vindicated.”
“This has been a long and emotional battle for my client,” McLaughlin said. “They wanted to develop this property, and there was an opportunity to make a lot of money, but it was taken away needlessly by Somerville, and Somerville only paid them a fraction of its value. is.”
The city had appealed the lower court’s ruling, arguing that McLaughlin’s comments at trial improperly swayed the jury.
The city will have another chance to appeal the decision, this time to the Supreme Judicial Court. A spokesperson would not say whether the city planned to do so, saying Sunday that the city’s legal department was still reviewing the decision.
The dispute dates back to 2019, when the city acquired four acres of land at 90 Washington Street as prominent land. This is a legal measure that allows local governments to seize private land. The land was home to a shuttered strip mall called Cobble Hill Plaza and was owned by three families. The family said through their lawyer that they plan to sell the land to a developer.
The families first filed a lawsuit against the city in 2019, alleging that their land was wrongly taken. In 2021, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the city of Somerville had the authority to seize the land, and lost the case.
But that wasn’t the end. In a separate lawsuit, the former owners also pointed to nearby properties that sold for higher prices and argued that the property was worth more than the city paid for it. The pair won their case last year, with a jury finding that Mr. Somerville should pay his family the difference in the value of their assets, about $26.5 million, plus about $1.4 million in interest.
The city appealed, arguing that McLaughlin, the former owner’s attorney, made inappropriate comments that unfairly swayed the jury’s decision, leading to a lack of a fair trial.
In his closing remarks at last year’s trial, McLaughlin asked jurors to consider how they had been treated by the government in the past.
“What is the common experience of how governments treat their citizens? Are they fair? Are they unfair?” he asked, according to court documents.
The city argued in its appeal that these and other statements in closing arguments were not appropriate questions. The appeals court judges found, among other things, that the lower court judge had resolved the issue by instructing the jury to ignore McLaughlin’s statements.
In an interview with the Globe on Sunday, McLaughlin admitted his comments at the time were “a little over the top.” He agreed with the judge’s decision to instruct jurors not to take those opinions into account and said he believed they would have no effect on the final verdict.
The Somerville Redevelopment Authority announced it plans to use the land as the site for a new public safety building with space for the city’s fire and police stations. It also sought input from residents about other uses, including commercial and residential development, for the parcel, which is a short walk from the new East Somerville MBTA station on the Green Line extension. A city spokesperson declined to comment on whether the recent court ruling would affect those plans.
Spencer Buell can be reached at spencer.buell@globe.com. follow him @SpencerBuell.
