We’ve got a true David vs. Goliath situation unfolding down in Alabama.
A property owner in Alabama is standing up – literally – to a power company trying to install a transmission line on his land, physically blocking employees from entering his land.
The disagreement started back in 2023, when Alabama Power notified 60-year-old Fenn Church that the company planned to acquire through eminent domain an easement across a portion of his 400-acre land in Calera, Alabama to install a high-voltage transmission line.
The company initially offered Church only $80,000 for an easement to his property, an offer which Church quickly rejected. They then upped the offer to $192,000, before making their final offer of $425,435 for the rights to his land. But Church refused to accept, in part because of an Alabama law that would allow Alabama Power to lease their easement to other telecommunications companies:
“Alabama Power can obtain an income stream of their own, unregulated by the Alabama Public Service Commission, using my property. I am still responsible for paying the property tax on the total acreage including their revenue producing easement. This could have been a stream of income for the landowner.”
Church has attempted to negotiate with Alabama Power, including a proposed alternate route with a neighboring landowner reportedly willing to allow the line to run through their property instead:
“I was clear from the start. I looked Alabama Power’s easement negotiator in the eye and said, ‘I’m just asking for a reasonable move of the line.’ I told them I was willing to fight the proposed placement. It’s my home, diminution of value, and privacy of my property.”
But the utility company refused to budge, and earlier this year Alabama Power filed a lawsuit against Church to access the property.
Church scored an initial win back in September, when a Shelby County judge issued a preliminary injunction preventing the utility company from entering his land. But the Alabama Supreme Court overturned the injunction on October 21, clearing the way for work to resume on the project.
Church and his supporters, though, refused to back down.
The company’s employees showed up within hours of the Supreme Court’s order, but Church stood at his gate and refused to allow the utility company to enter his property:
“I’m going to stand in front of that gate and say, ‘This is my home, and I’m not letting you drive through that gate. If they want to arrest me, they can handcuff me and take me to jail or run me over. But this is where I take my stand.”
And he’s not alone in that stand: Church’s fight has drawn support from elected officials on both sides of the aisle, including Alabama’s incoming governor Tommy Tuberville, as well as country singer and President Trump’s Special Envoy for American Landowners, John Rich.
Watch as Mr Fenn Church refuses to let Alabama Power cross his line. They have an alternate route with a willing landowner, but refuse to call him. This will most likely wind up with Mr Fenn being arrested on his own land. pic.twitter.com/TM2THIhK9A
— John Rich
(@johnrich) November 6, 2026
Unfortunately, Alabama Power was able to access the property at one point and began cutting down trees:
But the power company also filed another lawsuit in Shelby County, asking a judge to issue a restraining order requiring Church to stay 300 feet away from Alabama Power employees. The same judge who issued the initial injunction for Church dismissed the lawsuit yesterday, finding that the power company had improperly filed the new lawsuit while there was already pending litigation between the same parties.
Alabama Power has announced that they plan to appeal the judge’s latest ruling to the Alabama Supreme Court, but in the meantime Church isn’t backing down and is calling on the community for help fending off the power company at his property line:
It’s obviously a heartbreaking situation for the landowner, who the massive utility is trying to strongarm into giving up his own land for their benefit. And the power company admits that the only reason they’re pursuing Church’s land is because it would be more expensive to run the line elsewhere:
We’ll have to see what happens, and obviously it’s an uphill battle for Church, but hopefully the power company will eventually back down and allow him to keep his own land.