Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government v. Person

| [This is a fairly straightforward manifest-error case. The majority focuses on factual circumstances which, though interesting, are determinatively irrelevant. The justification for expropriation “is derived primarily from the testimony of the witnesses,” according to the majority. That is true. The trial court chose to place more weight on the testimony of the City-Parish’s experts. An appellate court should defer to that finding. While the majority concludes that the City-Parish did not produce “objective” evidence of the public need for expropriation, the record belies that assertion.

The…