The US offered a California family $4 million for its 6,300-acre island ranch; after they refused, the government seized it and a jury awarded them $12.7 million

A federal jury in Los Angeles ordered the United States government to pay $12.7 million (£7.8 million) to a California family after it seized their 6,300-acre ranch on Santa Cruz Island. The verdict, delivered in February 1999 after a three-week trial, ended a decades-long property dispute between federal park officials and attorney Francis Gherini, whose family had owned part of the island for more than a century.

Raccontata datimesofindia.indiatimes.com