Frankenmuth's Walmart Block Cost the City $3.7 Million
Won by Sommers Schwartz PC.
After two federal jury verdicts found that Frankenmuth violated the Loesel family's equal-protection rights by passing a zoning ordinance designed to block a Walmart land sale, the city settled for $3.7 million in November 2014.
What happened
The Loesel family owned a 37-acre tract just outside Frankenmuth, Michigan. In 2005 they signed a conditional agreement to sell roughly 23 acres to Walmart for nearly $3 million. Before the deal closed, city officials learned of the planned sale and passed an ordinance capping new retail buildings at 65,000 square feet, a limit that made a Walmart supercenter impossible. Walmart canceled, and the Loesels were left holding land they could no longer sell at the agreed price.
The family sued the city under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, arguing the size cap was enacted specifically to target their property and deny them the same treatment given to other landowners. Andrew Kochanowski of Sommers Schwartz, P.C. handled the case for the Loesels.
The first trial, held in the Eastern District of Michigan in early 2010, ended with a jury awarding the Loesels $3.6 million. The city appealed, and the Sixth Circuit reversed in August 2012, finding the jury instructions may have allowed a verdict on an improperly framed animus theory. The case went back for retrial.
At the second trial in March 2014, a new jury returned a verdict of $3.8 million. With years of accrued interest and attorneys' fees added, the total liability exposure climbed to roughly $5 million by mid-2014. Facing that exposure and the prospect of continued appellate litigation, Frankenmuth agreed to a $3.7 million settlement. The agreement was filed in Bay City federal court on November 12, 2014, and closed the case with no further appeals.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Loesel v. City of Frankenmuth, 6th Cir. (2012), via FindLaw·Archived copy
- 2.CBS Detroit: Frankenmuth settles Walmart case for $3.7 million (Nov. 2014)·Archived copy
- 3.Crain's Detroit Business: City of Frankenmuth settles Walmart case for $3.7 million (Nov. 12, 2014)·Archived copy
- 4.Mid-Michigan Now: Frankenmuth settles Walmart case for $3.7 million·Archived copy
- 5.SCOTUSblog: Loesel v. City of Frankenmuth cert petition (denied Jan. 2013)·Archived copy
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All Sommers Schwartz PC proven verdicts →A class settlement with Michigan Pain Specialists resolved claims of 311 patients and survivors of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak traced to contaminated steroid injections. It was reached in Livingston County Circuit Court in March 2016. The $10.5 million is a single class figure that the sources do not itemise by patient. Robert B. Sickels of Sommers Schwartz PC sat on the three-attorney plaintiffs' steering committee for Michigan.
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