Of course, the new system did not stop landowners from appealing the assessments made by the streets commissionsgenerally speaking, landowners who had inherited their property were more inclined to appeal assessments than were land speculators, who simply paid the assessments and waited for the values of their properties to rise, as they inevitably did. The outcomes of the landowner appeals, together with those of the lawsuits against the plan which had been filed as early as 1810, created a body of precedents by which the state law was administered. Most of the appeals failed, in particular those that claimed that the Plan was an unlawful taking of property, since eminent domain was a well-established principle of law, although its use on such an extensive basis in New York City was new.