The "drift" from initial interpretations of "eminent domain" has been from confiscation for public use (highways, waterways, etc) to confiscation for private use (as is the case in New London). It is not an entirely new interpretation -- it has been ruled like this before.

But it wouldn't have even been brought before the Supreme Court had there not been substance, something new, something different about this case. On that basis alone, the court was perfectly capable of ruling in favor of the poor. It was not compelled to interpret according to previous precedent.

And the notion that it was a mercy ruling -- trying to make it fair to the losers who had preceded the litigants -- is illogical. By what logic would a court rule against the poor, presumably for the previously swindled poor, when by that very ruling, they would be setting future precedent (ironically, the only basis upon which they claimed justification for this ruling) for the confiscation of anyone else's propert to give to any other private individual.

And the reason it is "liberal" as opposed to conservative, is that it does concretely illustrate the ideological divide -- the left is far more inclined to expand governmental property "rights" (and the subsequent taxes that can be exacted from the confiscation), and the conservative is far more likely to rule in favor of private property ownership.