...Mitchell’s group, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a trespassing lawsuit against Bayou Bridge, working with the Aaslestads and another landowner, Theda Larson Wright. Unlike the Aaslestads, Larson Wright’s oral testimony showed that her ancestors lived on or very near the parcel until the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 when her ancestors were forced off the land through eminent domain for levee building.
The lawyers, who are handling the case pro bono, had trouble getting others involved. Pam Spees, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said few are willing to sign on to lawsuits because companies take their eminent domain claims directly to landowners, offer them a few hundred dollars, and warn that they’ll take the landowners to court if they refuse. “It costs $700 just to file suit over eminent domain,” Spees said, adding that not many people have disposable income to fight something that’s often a protracted and expensive lawsuit that they’re likely to lose. ...