Landowners pull out of federal suit after selling land for Foxconn in Mount Pleasant

Four property owners  pulled out of a federal lawsuit against the village of Mount Pleasant on Friday after agreeing to sell their land to make way for Foxconn‘s Technology Group’s massive factory.

The owners pulled out of the suit after the village had voted, on Aug. 6, to buy their properties. The owners had originally argued in two lawsuits that the village had underpaid other property holders when it had acquired land for the $10 billion Foxconn factory, which is already under construction.

The village said last week it has acquired all the land it needs for the first phase of Foxconn’s expansion and 87 percent of the land for the company’s second and third phases. The village paid 140 percent of market value for the four disputed properties — an amount the suit had criticized as being unfair.

The purchase reduces the number plaintiffs involved in two ongoing legal challenges of the village’s land purchases. In both of the suits, one of which was filed in Racine County Circuit Court and the other in federal appeals court, owners of three more properties are still suing the village, according to court records, and are still represented by Erik Olsen, an attorney at the Madison-based firm Eminent Domain Services.

The group filed its latest suit against the village in mid-July after it passed a measure in late June declaring 2,800 acres of farmland blighted, an unprecedented step in Wisconsin that could allow the village to use eminent domain to take land in Foxconn’s path.

Property owners also claim the village has been offering inconsistent amounts for lands, arguing that owners of large property get better treatment than owners of small properties. The suit claims the village paid $5 million for a 100-acre farm in 2017, although a valuation the year before pegged the property’s value at $500,000.

Plaintiffs first sued over the Foxconn deal in January, arguing the village hadn’t offered to pay owners of small properties as much as large landowners. But a federal judge tossed out that argument and the group appealed. Neither party has filed a brief before the appeals court yet, according to court records.

“(Mount Pleasant’s) alleged conduct falls well short of shocking the conscience,” Jude Lynn Adelman wrote in a decision dismissing the case in May. “That defendants offered to pay some property owners substantially more than others to acquire their properties is hardly ‘oppressive.'” Follow @natebeck9