Tag: takings clause

U.S. Can’t Use Supreme Court’s Property Rights Ruling to Rewrite Takings Law

By
Ilya Shapiro

The Supreme Court ruled in December that a taking occurs when a government action gives rise to “a direct and immediate interference with the enjoyment and use of land,” thus allowing the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission to proceed with claims relating to the damage caused by government-induced flooding of a state wildlife management area. (The lower court had bizarrely held that while temporary physical invasions and permanent floods were subject to takings analysis, temporary flooding, even if repeated, was not.  For more background and links to Cato’s amicus briefs before the Supreme Court, see Roger Pilon’s commentary.)

On remand to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, however, the United States, relying on a single passage from the opinion, contends that the Supreme Court created a new multi-factor test applicable to all regulatory and temporary physical takings claims. Cato has now joined the Pacific Legal Foundation, National Federation of Independent Business, and National Association of Home Builders on a brief supporting the Commission and arguing that the passage upon which the government relies is both non-binding (“dicta” in legal terms) and in any event cannot be read to upset the distinction between regulatory and physical takings that the Court has consistently asserted.

It is well established in the Supreme Court’s takings jurisprudence that government intrusions on private property that permanently deprive the owner of a valuable property interest are to be subjected to the same test, regardless of whether the invasions are permanent or temporary. Under that test, courts are to consider the duration of the government intrusion, along with other information, to determine (1) whether the invasion is the direct cause of injury to the property and (2) whether the injury is substantial enough to subtract from the owner’s full enjoyment of the property and limit his exploitation thereof. If the injury to the property is substantial, it doesn’t matter whether the it was caused by an invasion of limited duration; once it is shown that the government invasion directly and substantially interfered with an owner’s property right, the government has a categorical duty to pay compensation.

In this case, the government’s intrusion permanently damaged significant property — valuable timber, from the destruction of trees — and is thus a compensable taking. The Supreme Court’s decision in Arkansas Game & Fish Commission didn’t modify or overturn the well-settled test for adjudicating physical takings claims, which remains distinct from the test that controls regulatory takings claims.

The Federal Circuit will hear argument in the case later this spring.

Topics: 
Law and Civil Liberties, Regulatory Studies

A Good Day for Property Rights

By
Roger Pilon

Property owners enjoyed a qualified win in the Supreme Court this morning when a unanimous Court (Justice Kagan recused) decided that “government-induced flooding temporary in duration gains no automatic exemption from Takings Clause inspection.” The case, Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, was brought by AGFC, which owns and operates 23,000 acres of land as a wildlife refuge and recreational preserve. Clearwater Dam, a federal flood control project, lies 115 miles upstream. Water is released from the dam in quantities governed by a pre-approved “management plan” that considers agricultural, recreational, and other effects downstream.

Between 1993 and 2000, the federal government released more water than authorized under the plan. AGFC repeatedly objected that these excess releases flooded the preserve during its growing season, which significantly damaged and eventually decimated tree populations. In 2001, the government acknowledged the havoc its flooding had wreaked on AGFC’s land and ceased plan deviations. By then, however, the preserve and its trees were severely damaged, requiring costly reclamation measures, so AGFC sued the government, claiming damages under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. Today, the Supreme Court agreed, reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Earlier, Cato had joined the Pacific Legal Foundation on an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to take the case, which it did. We then joined the Pacific Legal Foundation and the Atlantic Legal Foundation with a second amicus brief urging the Court to uphold the Fifth Amendment rights of property owners whose land is destroyed by the federal government.

As is so often the case with the Court’s property rights jurisprudence, however, today’s decision was not an unqualified win for property owners. Because there is “no magic formula” for determining whether a particular government action constitutes a taking of property, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the Court, “the Court has recognized few invariable rules in this area.” It has drawn some bright lines: regulations that constitute a permanent physical occupation of property or that require an owner to sacrifice all economically beneficial uses of his property will be ruled a taking. But in other cases, the Court will weigh several “factors.” Here, for example, in deciding whether the temporary flooding was a taking and hence compensable under the Takings Clause, the Court weighed the duration of the flooding, the degree to which the flooding was an intended or foreseeable result of the government’s action, the character of the land at issue, the severity of the interference, and—drawing from its infamously opaque Penn Central opinion—the owner’s “reasonable investment-backed expectations.”

Thus, the case is not over yet. Because the government had challenged several of the trial court’s fact-findings, including those relating to causation, forseeability, substantiality, and the amount of damages, the Court remanded the case for further proceedings. Still, the basic principle was settled: temporary government-induced flooding enjoys no automatic exemption from Takings Clause inspection. And that’s a win.

Topics: 
General, Law and Civil Liberties

I Heard It Through the Grapevine That the Government Was Violating Property Rights

By
Ilya Shapiro

This blogpost was co-authored by Cato legal associate Kathleen Hunker.

Property owners shouldn’t be made to suffer a needless, Rube Goldberg-style litigation process to vindicate their constitutional rights. Yet that is exactly what the U.S. Department of Agriculture seeks to impose on independent raisin farmers Marvin and Laura Horne when they protested the enforcement of a USDA “marketing order” that demanded that the Hornes turn over 47 percent of their crop without compensation.

The marketing order—a much-criticized New Deal relic—forces raisin “handlers” to reserve a certain percentage of their crop “for the account” of the government-backed Raisin Administrative Committee, enabling the government to control the supply and price of raisins on the market. The RAC then either sells the raisins or simply gives them away to noncompetitive markets—such as federal agencies, charities, and foreign governments—with the proceeds going toward the RAC’s administration costs.

Believing that they, as raisin “producers,” were exempt, the Hornes failed to set aside the requisite tribute during the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 growing seasons. The USDA disagreed with the Hornes’ interpretation of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 and brought an enforcement action, seeking $438,843.53 (the approximate market value of the raisins that the Hornes allegedly owe), $202,600 in civil penalties, and $8,783.39 in unpaid assessments.

After losing in that administrative review, the Hornes brought their case to federal court, arguing that the marketing order and associated fines violated the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. Having litigated the matter in both district and appellate court, the government—for the first time—alleged that the Hornes’ takings claim would not be ripe for judicial review until after the Hornes terminated the present dispute, paid the money owed, and then filed a separate suit in the Court of Federal Claims.

The San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit proved receptive to the government’s about-face. Relying on Williamson County v. Hamilton Bank (1985)—the Supreme Court case that first imposed ripeness conditions on takings claims—the court ruled in a revised opinion that the Tucker Act (which relates to federal waivers of sovereign immunity) divested federal courts of jurisdiction over all takings claims until the property owner unsuccessfully sought compensation in the Court of Federal Claims. In conflict with five other circuit courts and a Supreme Court plurality, the Ninth Circuit also concluded that the Tucker Act offered no exception for those claims challenging a taking of money, nor for those claims raised as a defense to a government-initiated action.

The ruling defies both law and common sense. It stretches the Supreme Court’s ripeness rule beyond its moorings and forces property owners to engage in utterly pointless, inefficient, and burdensome activities just to recover what should never have been taken in the first place.

Cato has thus filed an amicus brief, joined by the National Federation of Independent Business, Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, and Reason Foundation, supporting the Hornes’ request that the Supreme Court take the case and correct the Ninth Circuit’s overbroad reading of Williamson County. We argue that an unjustified monetary order is inherently a taking without just compensation and that a ruling to the contrary imposes a pointless burden on property owners, particularly when the government initiated the original proceeding.

We also encourage the Court to reconsider Williamson County, noting that the text and history of the Takings Clause don’t permit the government to defer compensation—that indeed the most natural reading of the Takings Clause demands that compensation be offered as a prerequisite to government action. Just as the Court wouldn’t permit the government to seize property without some prior “due process of law,” it shouldn’t permit the government to seize property without prior “just compensation.”

The Court has no reason to treat takings claims with less deference than rights anchored in other constitutional provisions. It will decide this fall whether to address that issue in the case of Horne v. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Law and Civil Liberties, Regulatory Studies

‘Temporary’ Takings That Cause Permanent Damage Still Require Just Compensation

By
Ilya Shapiro

This blogpost was co-authored by Trevor Burrus.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission owns and operates 23,000 acres of land as a wildlife refuge and recreational preserve; the preserve’s trees are essential to its use for these purposes. Clearwater Dam, a federal flood control project, lies 115 miles upstream. Water is released from the dam in quantities governed by a pre-approved “management plan” that considers agricultural, recreational, and other effects downstream.

Between 1993 and 2000, the federal government released more water than authorized under the plan. AGFC repeatedly objected that these excess releases flooded the preserve during its growing season, which significantly damaged and eventually decimated tree populations. In 2001, the government acknowledged the havoc its flooding had wreaked on AGFC’s land and ceased plan deviations. By then, however, the preserve and its trees were severely damaged, so AGFC sued the government, claiming damages under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause.

The district court awarded $5.8 million in lost timber and reforestation costs based on the substantiality of the government’s flooding and the foreseeability of the damage it caused. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed that decision, holding that flooding can never be a taking unless that flooding is permanent. It further held that, in determining whether the government’s flooding was permanent or temporary, courts must focus on the character of the policy behind the intrusion rather the effects of the intrusion itself. A taking cannot have occurred here because each deviation from the plan constituted a “temporary” policy, the court concluded, so AGFC had no constitutional remedy.

In December, Cato joined the Pacific Legal Foundation on an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to take the case, which it did. Now Cato again joins the Pacific Legal Foundation, as well as the Atlantic Legal Foundation, on a new brief urging the Court to uphold the Fifth Amendment rights of property owners whose land is destroyed by the federal government.

We argue that the length of time of the government’s physical invasion of property should not be used to determine whether a taking occurred, but rather only for calculating how much damage the taking caused. We further argue that the Federal Circuit’s focus on the “intent” of the government action—whether the flooding resulted from a “permanent or temporary policy”—is likewise irrelevant to whether a taking occurred. Instead, the inquiry should be whether the government caused permanent damage and, if so, how much. The lower court erroneously created a rule—that so long as it might be “temporary,” no government flooding can be remedied under the Fifth Amendment—that runs afoul of a constitutional provision meant to compensate property owners for government intrusions on their land.

The Supreme Court will hear the case of Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States in October or November.

Topics: 
Law and Civil Liberties

Cato’s Amicus Brief Helps Persuade Supreme Court to Protect Private Property Rights

By
Ilya Shapiro

This blogpost was co-authored by Cato legal associate Anna Mackin.

Today, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause case whose cert petition Cato supported with an amicus brief. In that brief, we joined the Pacific Legal Foundation in urging the Court to preserve a remedy long-recognized in American courts: compensation for government destruction of private property.

Over a year ago, the Federal Circuit blithely ignored this constitutionally guaranteed protection, ruling that so long as it might be characterized as “temporary,” no government flooding of private land can constitute a Fifth Amendment violation. If upheld, this sweeping opinion could prevent recovery for the destruction of private property whenever the government characterizes its own actions as “temporary,” without any assurances of the length of this “temporary” loss.

Notable Supreme Court commentators saw the importance of this case early on, and our amicus brief was featured on SCOTUSblog’s “petition of the day” page. Many thanks to Brian Hodges at PLF for working with Cato on the brief – one of just four filed in the case. Congratulations also and especially to Matthew Miller & Julie Greathouse of Perkins & Trotter, who represent AGFC, for their successful legal strategy.

It is gratifying to see the Court snap up this opportunity to protect private property rights – it is more likely than not that it will reverse the lower court – implicitly validating the position Cato and PLF advanced in this case. We’ll now be filing a brief on the merits that will urge the Court to maintain constitutional protections against government intrusions on private property. The Court will hear the case next term, probably this fall, with a final decision expected by early 2013.

For more on AGFC v. United States, check the case’s SCOTUSBlog page or its Supreme Court docket page. Jonathan Adler also blogged about the case at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Law and Civil Liberties, Regulatory Studies

Property Rights Are Not Second-Class Rights

By
Ilya Shapiro

When state and local governments violate federal constitutional rights (e.g., First Amendment free speech), they can be sued in federal court — except when that government action violates the Fifth Amendment’s protections for property rights.  Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Williamson County v. Hamilton Bank, individuals and businesses alleging unconstitutional takings by state or local governments are required to exhaust state review procedures — seeking redress from the very officials who harmed them — before turning to federal courts.

This constitutional anomaly is evident in Colony Cove v. City of Carson, where the operators of a rental property in California alleged an unconstitutional taking when the local rent control board refused to approve an increase in rent to allow their business to operate profitably. California law forecloses judicial review of the findings of rent control boards, so municipal governments have an unchecked license to determine whether such businesses may operate: A property owner’s sole recourse is to appeal to the very rent control board who forbade her from charging a profitable rent in the first place.

These “review” procedures, like some others across the nation, are wildly insufficient. Even more significantly, once a takings claim has been fully heard in state proceedings per Williamson County’s command, it is usually barred from federal review based on various prudential doctrines. The result is the indiscriminate exclusion of takings claims from federal courts, a situation that invites opportunist states to usurp private property rights.

Seeking to afford citizens across the nation the opportunity to assert Takings Clause claims in parity with other constitutional rights, Cato joined the New England Legal Foundation, National Federation of Independent Business, Institute for Justice, Goldwater Institute, and Professors James Ely and Richard Epstein in filing an amicus brief supporting the California property owners’ petition for Supreme Court review of the Ninth Circuit’s ruling against them.

We argue that Williamson County should be overruled because it relegates takings claims to second-class status despite the constitutional first principle that uniform protection of individual rights is vital to our system of government. At the very least, the Court should require federal reprieve when state procedures for rectifying a taking are futile — as they were here. Finally, we argue that the Court should correct lower courts’ misinterpretation of Williamson County, which puts property rights jurisprudence at odds with Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (a statute that gives people access to federal courts when a state denies them their constitutional rights).

The Court will decide whether to review Colony Cove v. City of Carson later this year.  Thanks to legal associate Anna Mackin for her help with the brief, whose counsel of record is Cato adjunct scholar Ilya Somin.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Law and Civil Liberties

The Takings Clause Has No Expiration Date II

By
Ilya Shapiro

As I wrote last week, a decade ago in Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, the Supreme Court rejected the idea that those who buy property subject to burdensome regulations lose the right the seller otherwise has to challenge those regulations.  The Court ruled that the Takings Clause does not have an “expiration date.”  Sadly, not all government authorities or courts took Palazzolo to heart, and now we have a second such case meriting Cato’s involvement in the span of a week.

In 2000, after the EPA issued a Record of Decision concerning limiting access to a “slough” (a narrow strip of navigable water) on its Superfund National Priorities List, CRV Enterprises began negotiations to buy a parcel of land next to the slough across from a site once occupied by a wood-preserving plant.  CRV hoped to develop that parcel and others it already controlled into a mixed-use development, including a marina, boat slips, restaurants, lodging, storage, sales, and service facilities.  The company eventually bought the land with notice of the EPA’s ROD but the EPA later installed a “sand cap” and “log boom” that obstructed CRV’s access to the slough.

CRV sued the United States in the Court of Federal Claims, which dismissed the case for lack of standing. The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that CRV’s claim “is barred because [the company] did not own a valid property interest at the time of the alleged regulatory taking.”  The Federal Circuit thus turned two Supreme Court precedents on their head and put that “expiration date” on the Takings Clause.  It did so despite the fact that multiple federal courts have upheld Palazzolo’s rule and that longstanding California common law recognizes that a littoral (next to water) owner’s access to the shore adjacent to his property is a property right.

Cato, joined by Reason Foundation, the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, and the National Federation of Independent Business, filed an amicus brief supporting CRV’s request that the Supreme Court review the Federal Circuit’s decision and reaffirm Palazzolo.  We argue the following: (1) when post-enactment purchasers are per se denied standing to challenge regulation, government power expands at the expense of private property rights; (2) a rule under which pre-enactment owners have superior rights to subsequent title-holders threatens to disrupt real estate markets; (3) the Federal Circuit abrogated the rule of Palazzolo; and (4) this case — viewed in the context of other courts’ rulings — indicates the need for the Supreme Court to settle the spreading confusion about Palazzolo.  Otherwise, the existence of a “post-enactment” rule will create a “massive uncompensated taking” from small developers and investors that would preserve and enhance the rights of large corporations.

Palazzolo put to rest “once and for all the notion that title to property is altered when it changes hands.”  The ability of property owners to challenge government interference with their property is essential to a proper understanding of the Fifth Amendment; the Court must reestablish the principle that transfer of title does not diminish property rights.  Significantly, the Federal Circuit isn’t alone in its misapplication of Palazzolo; the Ninth Circuit in Guggenheim v. City of Goleta (in which Cato also filed a brief) recently issued an opinion severely narrowing Palazzolo’s scope and deepening a circuit split.

Thanks to legal associate Nick Mosvick and former legal associate Brandon Simmons (acting as our outside counsel in this case) for their work on this case, CRV Enterprises v. United States.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Law and Civil Liberties, Regulatory Studies

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