The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a Florida apartment complex's class action challenge to a state law allowing the government to keep most of the interest on funds the county court held during eminent domain proceedings. Jupiter, Florida, apartment complex Mallards Cove LLP asked SCOTUS to hear its inverse condemnation suit against the Florida Department of Transportation and the clerk of the Pasco County Circuit Court. Mallards Cove argued that a state statute allowing the government to collect the overwhelming majority of interest on quick-take deposits violates the Fifth Amendment's ban on the government's taking of property without providing fair compensation.
The Second District Court of Appeal's March 2015 held that the deposited funds were not Mallards Cove's property. The county clerk invested the deposit and later paid the FDOT 90 percent of the interest earned, the petition said. The case is Mallards Cove LLP v. State of Florida, Department of Transportation et al.
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