Energy Company Awarded Permission to Condemn Properties to Build Pennsylvania Gas Pipeline

         This week, UGI Corp., an energy holding company, received a favorable judgment in a Pennsylvania federal court that allows the company to condemn eleven private properties to build a thirty-five-mile natural gas pipeline.  The case turned on the validity of a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) certificate of public convenience and necessity that permitted UGI Corp. to take the private property and prevented suit by the landowners.  The landowners sought to overturn preliminary injunctions the court granted UGI Corp. in the landowners’ suits.  However, the court held that it had no right to overturn a property rights certificate granted by the FERC and accordingly preliminary injunctions were proper. Further analysis of the case can be found here.