Charles Stratton co-founded Stratton Eminent Domain Law with his son, Joshua Stratton, continuing his decades of practice solely in the field of eminent domain law.

Before entering private practice and exclusively representing private property owners, tenants, and business owners, Mr. Stratton worked for the Florida Department of Transportation (“FDOT”). He started as a trial attorney for FDOT and was soon promoted, supervising other eminent domain attorneys in two of FDOT’s seven geographical districts. In only a few years, he became FDOT’s chief eminent domain attorney for the entire state of Florida. Mr. Stratton’s experience at FDOT gave him the opportunity to handle thousands of property condemnations across the state and to gain tremendous trial experience.

Upon entering private practice, Mr. Stratton worked for such prominent Florida and national firms as Brigham Moore, Broad and Cassel, Nelson Mullins, and Berger Singerman. At the latter three firms, he was their lead, or co-lead, eminent domain attorney.

Since he entered private practice, Mr. Stratton has been involved in hundreds of eminent domain cases throughout Florida, and has tried dozens of jury trials and appeals from one end of the state to the other. Rather than work for condemnors, Mr. Stratton focuses his practice on working for property owners, tenants, and business owners, such as yourself.

Mr. Stratton is a Florida Supreme Court-certified mediator. This training gives him great insight into the mediation process which, since its introduction several decades ago, has become the means by which most eminent domain cases are resolved. Of course, it is up to each client to decide whether or not to settle their case or to proceed to a jury trial, and Mr. Stratton is always willing to put his extensive experience and skills as a trial litigator to use for his clients.

Notable trials for Mr. Stratton include:

In Okaloosa County, the County offered a property owner $23,050 to purchase 4½ acres of timberland, and FDOT offered the same owner $7,900 to purchase another 1½ acres of timberland from the same overall property. The property was to be used for a new interstate highway interchange project and connecting roads. After Mr. Stratton and his team filed an appeal to reverse FDOT’s acquisition of 1½ acres, FDOT settled, paying $530,000 plus fees and costs, and agreeing to change its construction plans in a way that made the owner’s remaining land more valuable. Mr. Stratton and his team then had a jury trial against the County. The court made a series of rulings in favor of Mr. Stratton’s client, and the County agreed to settle on the second day of trial for $1,094,125 plus fees and costs.

In St. Lucie County, FDOT attempted to take 1,046 square feet of undeveloped land south of Fort Pierce in exchange for a total payment of $1,400 to the landowner, a local builder. Even though the judge would not allow the owner’s appraiser to testify at trial, Mr. Stratton was able to use the owner’s own testimony as to the value of the property to secure a jury verdict of nearly $250,000 for the taking, plus fees and costs.

Mr. Stratton has achieved excellent results for his clients outside of trial as well:

FDOT took property in Broward County for the purpose of realigning a road. The realignment would require taking land from Mr. Stratton’s client, who owned a warehouse on the property. FDOT argued that it should be allowed to demolish the entire warehouse, but Mr. Stratton was able to convince the court to permit FDOT to only demolish the one part it actually needed for the road. Later, when Mr. Stratton’s client decided that the warehouse would not be able to function due to the road project, Mr. Stratton worked out a settlement with FDOT that resulted in FDOT paying to demolish the now-unusable warehouse, paying Mr. Stratton’s client several million dollars, and giving Mr. Stratton’s client an additional 1.7 acres of prime land next door which was surplus to FDOT’s needs but was quite valuable.

Mr. Stratton has also aided clients in obtaining relocation assistance from condemnors. Relocation assistance is provided in addition to full compensation and has allowed Mr. Stratton’s clients to purchase new homes instead of continuing to rent; to relocate and expand the capabilities of their businesses; and to move their businesses from old premises into new custom-built spaces.

Although it is impossible to promise that any client will obtain the same results, on numerous occasions Mr. Stratton has been able to stop condemnors from obtaining court orders allowing them to take property, giving him leverage to negotiate better terms for his clients, or to get his clients more time to prepare for litigation.

Mr. Stratton has represented numerous national and regional businesses affected by eminent domain, including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and car dealerships. He has also represented many small business owners, mini-storage and boat-storage sites, individual home owners, churches, and owners of valuable vacant property.

Mr. Stratton has been included in “The Best Lawyers in America” from 2007 to 2024. Martindale-Hubbell has rated him an AV Preeminent^® attorney, with the agency’s highest marks for both his competency and ethics. He has been included by Thompson Reuters on the Florida Super Lawyers lists for 2006 and 2009–2020.

Mr. Stratton has been a co-author of Florida Eminent Domain Practice and Procedure since its fourth edition in 1988. Now in its thirteenth edition, with its fourteenth edition forthcoming, this standard reference book published by the Florida Bar is regularly used by lawyers and courts statewide in eminent domain matters.

Joshua Stratton co-founded Stratton Eminent Domain Law with his father, Charles Stratton, continuing a career of representing private property owners, tenants, and business owners against condemning authorities such as the Florida Department of Transportation (“FDOT”), utilities, counties, and cities throughout Florida.

Following ten years of private practice in New England, Mr. Stratton returned to Florida to work with his father, and focused his legal practice on eminent domain. Mr. Stratton has worked at Broad and Cassel, Nelson Mullins, and Berger Singerman prior to co-founding Stratton Eminent Domain Law.

Mr. Stratton has been involved in numerous eminent domain cases throughout Florida, including jury trials and appeals. While most eminent domain cases are resolved through mediation, Mr. Stratton is unafraid to face down a condemnor in a twelve-person jury trial if his client wishes to do so.

Although Mr. Stratton works on clients’ cases from beginning to end as part of a team effort, one area he focuses on is attacking the condemnor’s initial move of taking the property at the beginning of the case. While a determined condemnor cannot be permanently kept from taking property, making the condemnation difficult can cause condemnors to look for better and easier alternatives. Further, even stopping condemnations temporarily can be of great value to a property owner — not only out of a desire to keep their property out of the hands of the condemnor, but because it may provide the owner with useful leverage over the condemnor. In some cases, condemnors may even see the writing on the wall and concede without the court even needing to rule that that taking — at least for now — is illegal.

Some notable examples of Mr. Stratton’s work defending clients’ property rights include:

From 2021 to 2024, FDOT repeatedly attempted to take property from Nova Southeastern University’s (“NSU”) satellite campus in Palm Beach County. Mr. Stratton seized on a technical defect in FDOT’s first case in 2021 to spur the Department to dismiss its own suit as unwinnable. In 2022, FDOT refiled its case, but failed to address certain prerequisites to filing, prompting it to again dismiss their own suit. In 2023, FDOT filed the same case for a third time, and facing a fresh round of attacks on their right to take the property, finally agreed to the settlement terms that NSU had proposed from the beginning.

In 2022, FDOT attempted to take property from a private owner in Okaloosa County. Twice, Mr. Stratton stopped the Department from taking the land and improvements, ultimately compelling FDOT to agree to pay 100% of the owner’s demand of $1,930,000 for the property.

In 2020, Gulf Power (now part of Florida Power and Light) attempted to take an easement through an owner-occupied residential property for the installation of a massive natural gas pipeline being used to fuel the regional power plant. Mr. Stratton’s arguments resulted in the Court denying the utility company the right to take the land without refiling its lawsuit, thus delaying its pipeline project. This put the property owner in a position to forgive the legal defect and allow Gulf Power to proceed on schedule in exchange for more favorable terms.

In 2017, Mr. Stratton briefed and argued an appeal before the Florida First District Court of Appeal to overturn a property taking of vacant land in Washington County. The appellate court agreed that the taking was unlawful and returned the property to its rightful owner. The owner was then able to achieve her “dream number” of compensation from FDOT, which had already begun construction on the site. Reversals of condemnations on appeal are exceedingly rare in Florida.

Mr. Stratton has had a wide variety of other successes on behalf of his clients, including:

In 2024, on the first day of a trial in which the property owner intended to testify as to the value of his property, Okaloosa County argued six motions before the judge, each meant to undercut the property owner’s right to testify. Property owners have a right to testify as to the value of their property in eminent domain trials, even though the owner may not be an appraiser or other real estate professional. Mr. Stratton argued in favor of his client — the property owner — and was successful in protecting the owner’s right to tell the jury his opinion as to the value of his property. The County decided not to test its luck with the jury and the case settled for an amount of about fifty times the County’s original offer.

In 2016, the Florida Department of Transportation claimed that certain privately-owned property in Broward County was subject to a preexisting state easement that substantially reduced the amount of compensation that was owed. Mr. Stratton helped bring new evidence to light which established that according to the state’s own maps, the easement was not located on the property, but was in fact two blocks away. As a result, the Department was compelled to more than double its offer to Mr. Stratton’s client, the property owner. The sizable increase in the Department’s offer was sufficient to cause the case to settle on the eve of trial.

Mr. Stratton has been a co-author of Florida Eminent Domain Practice and Procedure since its twelfth edition in 2021. Now in its thirteenth edition, with its fourteenth edition forthcoming, this standard reference book published by the Florida Bar is regularly used by lawyers and courts statewide in eminent domain matters.

Before he began exclusively practicing in the field of eminent domain, Mr. Stratton represented major national and global businesses in the technology and financial sectors.