In fact, Somerville must pay $28 million to the previous owners of a Washington Street property it seized in 2019. This comes from a recent court ruling that upheld an earlier ruling that the city had significantly underpaid when it took control of the property against the wishes of the owners.

Wednesday’s decision by the Massachusetts Court of Appeals came later a lower court determined that the four-acre property was valued at $35.3 million, a sum significantly higher than the roughly $8.8 million the Somerville Redevelopment Authority paid for it.

George McLaughlin, the attorney for the former property owner, said in an interview Sunday that they felt “vindicated.”

“This has been a long and emotional battle for my clients,” McLaughlin said. “They wanted to develop this property and had an opportunity that would have made them a lot of money, but it was unnecessarily taken away from them by Somerville and Somerville paid them a fraction of what it was worth.”

The city had appealed the lower court’s decision, arguing that the jury was unduly influenced by statements McLaughlin made at trial.

The city again has the opportunity to appeal the decision, this time to the Supreme Court. A spokesman did not say whether the city plans to do so, saying Sunday that its legal department was still reviewing the decision.

The dispute dates back to 2019, when the city took over the four-acre property at 90 Washington Street via eminent domain, a legal measure that allows municipalities to take over private land. The country Was Home to a shuttered shopping center called Cobble Hill Plaza was owned by three families who stated through their lawyer that they planned to sell the land to developers.

The families initially argued that their land had been taken unlawfully and filed a lawsuit against the city in 2019. They lost that case in 2021 when the Supreme Court ruled that Somerville had the authority to seize their land.

But that wasn’t the end. In a separate lawsuit, the former owners also argued that the property was worth more than the city paid for it, citing the high price at which a nearby property was sold. They won that Last year, a jury ruled that Somerville should pay the families the property value difference of about $26.5 million, plus about $1.4 million in interest.

The city appealed, saying it did not receive a fair trial because comments made by McLaughlin, the former owners’ attorney, were inappropriate and improperly influenced the jury’s decision.

During closing remarks at the trial last year, McLaughlin asked jurors to think about how they themselves had been treated by the government in the past.

“What is your common experience about how the government treats its citizens? Are they fair? “Are they unfair?” he asked, according to court documents.

The city argued in its appeal These and several other statements in his closing argument were not appropriate questions. The appeals court judges found, among other things, that the lower court judge solved all the problems by telling the jury to ignore McLaughlin’s testimony.

McLaughlin acknowledged in an interview with the Globe on Sunday that his comments at the time were “somewhat exaggerated.” He said he agreed with the judge’s decision to instruct the jury not to consider them and believed it had no bearing on the final verdict.

The Somerville Redevelopment Authority has announced plans to use the site as the site of a new public safety building with space for the city’s fire and police departments. Residents were also asked for input on other uses for the property, which is a short walk from the new East Somerville MBTA station on the Green Line Extension, including commercial and residential development. The city spokesman declined to comment on whether the recent court decision will impact those plans.

Spencer Buell can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @SpencerBuell.