Ex-Justice Fails to Resolve Land Dispute
A mediation overseen by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has failed to produce an agreement by the U.S. government to compensate former Kentucky landowners and their heirs.
Now the claimants are asking a judge to issue a final ruling in a case seeking more than $30 million from the government’s sale of the land, once used as a World War II training camp, Associated Press reports.
The landowners sold their farmland to the government after agents told them it was needed for the war effort. All told, they received $3.1 million.
Many in the group say the government made an oral promise that they could buy back the land. But the tracts, found to be rich with oil and coal, were unaffordable when the government eventually sold them, they said. Now they want their share of the profits.
The plaintiffs are seeking the money in the U.S. Court of Claims.
