Orange County Transportation Authority Dodges Relocation Costs

The Orange County Transportation Authority isn’t on the hook to pay two utility companies more than $15 million in costs associated with relocating equipment for a streetcar project, the Ninth Circuit said Wednesday.

The utilities aren’t entitled to compensation because California law doesn’t give the utilities the property interests they claim to have, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said. The utilities aren’t entitled to money under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment—which says that private property can’t be taken for public use without proper compensation—because there was no property interest under state law, the court ...