A recent Fourth District Court of Appeal in Florida has overturned a ruling that the state is constitutionally required to pay full compensation for trees taken by the state during the state’s canker eradication program. The appellate court has stated that eminent domain laws do not cover the taking of trees. The homeowners of the destroyed trees are Palm Beach County residents – who feel that they are owed $19.2 million for the healthy citrus trees the state destroyed. The ruling now means that the tree owners must go before the Legislature to start the claims process, instead of making a claim directly against the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Forty thousand Palm Beach County homeowners were affected in the removal and destruction of the citrus trees, with 66,493 uninfected trees taken. The original award for the taking was given by a jury, who determined that the homeowners were owed more that the $100 Walmart gift cards offered for the first tree and $55 for each additional tree. The average award was an averaged of $288 per tree, or $19.2 million. With this reversal in ruling, the homeowners may take the case to the Florida Supreme Court.
The canker eradication program was controversial – not only were trees destroyed that had the cankers, but also trees within a 1,900 feet radius of any infected tree were destroyed. The eradication program ended in January 2006, with a cost of $1.6 billion, when the federal government declared the disease endemic to Florida. At that point, more than 16.5 million infected and healthy trees in commercial and residential properties were removed and destroyed.