44 Cases Listed
Updated: March 4, 2002
Venetian Casino Resort, L.L.C. v.
Local Joint Executive Board of La Vegas, et al., S. Ct. No.
01-918
Petition Filed: Dec. 21, 2002
Lower Court Opinion: 257 F.3d 937 (9th Cir. 2001)
Although the Petition raises a First Amendment issue, this case
raises issues regarding property rights, including the right to
exclude. Pacific Legal Foundation has filed an amicus brief in
support of the petition. The Petitioner argues that the effect
of the appeal court's ruling is to convert private property into
public property without compensation.
Question presented:
1. Whether, as the divided Ninth Circuit held below, a wholly
private entity is constrained by the First Amendment when
controlling protests on its own private sidewalk on the basis that
the sidewalk -- although private property -- resembles a
"public forum" in certain respects, or whether, as other
federal and state courts have held and as this Court's
decisions instruct, a private entity's control of expressive
activity on its own property can be deemed state action subject to
the First Amendment only in exceptionally narrow circumstances
involving the equivalent of a "company town."
Phillip D. Forner, F&B Development,
L.L.C. and Allendale Heating Co., Inc. v. Allendale Charter Township,
S. Ct. No. 01-951
Petition Filed: Oct. 29, 2001
Lower Court Opinion: 627 N.W. 2d 596 (Mich. 2001)
Question Presented:
1. The ZBA's variance included, among other conditions, a
7.55-acre open space that must continue until one year after the
adjacent turkey farm ceased operating as an intensive animal
operation. Did the ZBA or the continued agricultural zoning
result in a taking of some (7.55 acres) or all of petitioners' land
without compensation?
Darwin R. Griffith v. New Jersey
Department of Environmental Protection, S. Ct. No. 01-853
Petition Filed: Dec. 5, 2001
Cert. Denied: Feb. 25, 2002
Lower Court Opinion: 340 N.J.Super. 596, 775 A.2d 54 (May 2001)
Questions Presented:
1. Whether the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States
Constitution and First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v.
County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304 (1987) require this Court to
provide just compensation for a temporary taking of real property, in
the context of unreasonable and extraordinary administrative delays in
the developmental approval process, which occur prior to a
governmental entity's exercise of state statutory provisions enabling
that entity to ameliorate a landowner's damaged by modifying its
conduct and thereby avoid a permanent takings?
2. Whether the lower court erred in finding that:
A. The time consumed by the judicial review of a state agency
decisions, which contributes to an overall extraordinary delay, prior
to the ultimate reversal of an irrational agency decision denying
development approvals, is inherently part of a reasonable administrative
approval process, and therefore, not compensable in a temporary
takings claim brought pursuant to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments
of the United States Constitution?
B. A permit applicant is require to exhaust all available
administrative processes prior to instituting a judicial action for a
temporary takings where (1) the responsible state agency has rendered
a final decision relative to a specifically require permit, that effectively
extinguishes all feasible economic development on the applicant's
property, and where (2) the simultaneous or sequential pursuit of additional
development permits by the applicant would not clarify or broaden the
scope of the property's development potential?
Rowe v. North Carolina Dept. of Transp.,
S. Ct. No. 01-819
Petition Filed: Nov. 14, 2001
Cert. Denied: Feb. 19, 2002
Lower Court Opinion: 549 S.E.2d 203 (N.C. 2001)
Question Presented:
(Paraphrase) Whether a statute allowing a jury to consider
general benefits -- which include increases in land value that arise
from the project that justified the taking and that result from
enjoyment of the new facilities and from increased general
prosperity resulting from such enjoyment -- when it calculates just
compensation for a taking violates the Takings or Equal Protection
Clauses.
Wilkinson
v. Dallas Forth Worth International Airport Board, et al.,
S. Ct. No. 01-735
Filed: Nov. 21, 2001
Cert. Denied: Feb. 19, 2002
Lower Court Decision: 54 S.W.3d 1 (Tex.
Ct. App. 2001).
Questions Presented:
1. Whether Texas, by upholding the
actions of the Court of Appeals, has rendered its own constitutional
provisions relating to takings to be in violation of the provisions
of the United States Constitution and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by allowing
the expansion of the notion of “community” damages in this case.
By doing so, they have fostered the use of “community” damages
as a subterfuge for immunity which has been made improper under
previous rulings of this Court and also in violation of recent
decisions of this Court with regards to the standards for partial
takings. A “community damage” standard has been created which
allows the system to make some pay for a benefit to be enjoyed by
all and the community standard has been subverted to be one in which
it is impossible for any large number of people to be legally harmed
simply because they are a large number. Furthermore, this decision
specifically upsets existing law with regards to navigation
easements by wrapping them under the community exemptions –
clearly in violation of existing law.
2. The actions of the Texas Court
have been incompatible to recent actions of this Court as well as
established law in that they have found that all takings, contrary
to the plain language of their own constitutional provisions, must
be total to rise to a constitutional wrong and also providing that
the “community” blanket will prevent any sort of analysis for
diminutions in value (even if serious) if they are characterized as
a generalized taking rather than specific which rulings are in
violation of this Court’s recent pronouncements.
* * * [Question 3 omitted.]
Section
28 Partnership, Ltd. v. Martin County, Florida,
S. Ct. No. 01-713
Filed: Nov. 19, 2001
Cert. Denied: Jan. 22, 2002
Lower Court Decisions 772 So.2d 616
(Fla. Ct. App. 2000); 794 So.2d 606 (Fla. 2001).
Questions Presented:
1. Whether there is a
“substantially advances a legitimate public interest” prong to
the takings analysis under the Fifth Amendment which applies to
exercises of the police power in regard to individual properties and
particular development proposals which do not involve exactions?
* * * [Question 2 omitted.]
Grogan v.
City of Cincinnati, S. Ct.
No. 01-828
Filed: Oct. 23, 2001
Cert. Denied: Jan. 7, 2002
Lower Court Decisions: 753 N.E.2d 256
(Ohio Ct. App. 2001); 751 N.E.2d 481 (Ohio 2001).
Questions Presented:
1. Does Ohio Revise Code §
3767.06(A), which permits the closure and pad-locking of property
found to be a public nuisance, violate the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments to the United States Constitution when applied to close
and padlock a commercial establishment located in a high crime area
which is open to the public, where the owner of the establishment
has taken reasonable steps to abate the behavior which forms the
basis of the alleged nuisance, has not acquiesced thereto, yet
proves unsuccessful in completely eradicating such behavior?
* * * [Questions 2 & 3 omitted.]
MC Associates
v. Town of Cape Elizabeth, S. Ct. No. 01-655
Filed: Oct. 19, 2001
Cert. Denied: Jan. 7, 2002
Lower Court Decision: 773 A.2d 439 (Me. 2001)
Questions Presented:
1. Can the owner of a residential building lot (a
lot of record since 1964) be barred from building a single family
house on that lot, and from constitutionally challenging that bar,
merely because the present form of his legal ownership of that lot
arises after the passage of local land use ordinances that prevent
development of the property?
2. Does a diminution in value of a single family
house lot from $88,000 (if buildable) to $3,000 (if unbuildable)
constitute a categorical taking, notwithstanding the fact that the
residual value of the unbuildable lot is greater than zero?
3. In settings where a categorical takings is not
found, may the court dispose of the case on a summary judgment motion
(as happened here), or must it then proceed to determine whether a
non-categorical taking has occurred under more conventional Penn
Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104 (1978)
takings doctrines and analyses?
4. In the face of an unequivocal denial by the
Town of the right to build on a residential lot (a denial predicated
on Wetlands and Minimum Lot Size provisions in the town's Zoning
Ordinance) must the owner of the building lot nonetheless pursue to
finality (actually obtain) a State waste discharge permit in order to
show compliance with the Town's Sewage Disposal Ordinance and to
perfect his taking claim?
State
Engineering Ass'n v. George Lightbourn, S. Ct. No. 01-638
Filed: Oct. 16, 2001
Cert. Denied: Jan. 7, 2002
Lower Court Decision: 627 N.W.2d 807 (Wis. 2001)
Questions Presented:
1. Whether the assets and earnings of the Wisconsin
Retirement System are the "private property" of
participants in the Wisconsin clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments to the United States Constitution.
2. Whether the judicial abandonment or
recasting of well established private property rights, properly
voids the Constitutional protections of the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments to the United States Constitution as to the taking of
such private property without just compensation and without due process
of law.
3. Whether the challenged provisions of 1999
Wisconsin Act 11 take the private property of participants in the
Wisconsin Retirement System without just compensation and without
due process of law.
4. Whether the challenged provisions of 1999
Wisconsin Act 11 impair the contract between participants and the
State of Wisconsin in violation of Article I, §10 of the United
States Constitution.
Roedler v. Department of Energy, S. Ct. No. 01-582
Filed:
Oct. 4, 2001
Cert. Denied: Dec. 3, 2001
Lower Court Opinions: 1999 WL 1627346 (D.
Minn.
1999); 255 F.3d 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2001).
Question Presented:
1. Does the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982,
42 U.S.C. § 10101 et seq., trump the taking clause of the
Fifth Amendment by implementing a contractual scheme where users of
nuclear generated power pay a Congressionally mandated fee,
collected by the Utility and paid over to the Governments’ [sic]
Nuclear Waste Trust Fund, dedicated removal of Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF),
where it has been judicially determined that the government has
breached its Contract obligations to remove SNF but retains and
still collects hundreds of millions of dollars from the fee payers
who received nothing in return? The Court’s [sic] below denied fee
payers, [sic] prayer for legal and equitable relief dismissing the
Complaint under F.R. C. P. 12(b)(6).
[Question 2 omitted.]
Consolidated Edison Company of New York,
Inc. et al., v.
United States of America, et al.,
S. Ct.
No. 01-205
Filed: August 1, 2001
Cert. Denied: Dec. 3, 2001
Lower Court Rulings: 247 F.3d 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2001), 45 F. Supp. 2d
331 (S.D.N.Y. 1999)
Questions presented:
1. Whether the Federal Circuit’s abrogation of this Court’s
decision in Bowen v.
Massachusetts, 487 U.S. 879 (1988), should be permitted to stand
and, contrary to this Court’s decision in Eastern
Enterprises, Inc. v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498 (1998), the District
Court deprived of subject matter jurisdiction to hear petitioners’
Fifth Amendment challenges to EPACT and claims for prospective,
equitable relief.
2. Whether, contrary to this Court’s precedent and decisions of
other circuit courts of appeals, the CRC can render judgment on
petitioners’ Takings and Due Process Clause challenges to EPACT
and provide an “adequate remedy” under 5 U.S.C. § 704 for their
equitable claims, hereby depriving the District court of its subject
matter jurisdiction over this case.
R.W. Docks & Slips v. Wisconsin, S. Ct. No.
01-520
Cert. Denied: November 26, 2001
Lower Court Opinions: 628 N.W.2d 781 (Wis. 2001); 617 N.W.2d 519 (Wis.
Ct. App. 2000).
Questions Presented:
1. Is the public trust doctrine a "background
principle" of state property law as to always be a complete
defense to a regulatory taking claim?
2. Are individual condominium units to be regarded each as the
relevant parcel in the "takings fraction," for purposes
both of the categorical rule of Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal
Council and the balancing test of Penn Central Transportation
Co. v. City of New York?
Allustiarte,
et al. v
United
States
, S. Ct. No. 01-575
Cert. Denied: November 26, 2001
Lower Court Opinions: 46 Fed. Cl. 713 (2000); 256 F.3d 1349 (Fed. Cir.
2001).
Questions Presented:
The petitioners filed a
claim against the United States
in the United States Court of Federal Claims alleging that certain
decisions of various bankruptcy courts in the Ninth Circuit amounted
to takings of their property without just compensation in violation of
the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Court of Federal
Claims dismissed the action for lack of jurisdiction.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed.
The question presented here is:
Should a decision of a
bankruptcy court that results in a devaluation or loss of property
to a debtor, a creditor, or a person not a party to the bankruptcy
action, but which is proper and routine in the administration of the
bankruptcy estate, be considered a taking of property without just
compensation for which the property owner may seek compensation in
an independent claim in the Court of Federal Claims?
Burgess v. Florida Dept. of Envt'l
Protection, S. Ct. No. 01-477
Cert. Denied: November 26, 2001
Lower Court Opinion: 772 So.2d 540 (2000)
Questions Presented:
1. Whether a property owner who establishes that
he has been denied all economically viable use of his land is also
required to prove that such denial "interfered with his reasonable,
distinct, investment-backed expectation, held at the time he
purchased the property."
2. Whether the remaining permissible uses of
regulated property are economically viable when they consist of
"personal recreational use[s]," i.e., "nature walks and
fishing."
Bugryn, et al. v. City of Bristol, S. Ct. No. 01-407
Cert. Denied: November 13, 2001
Lower Ct. Opinions: 776 A.2d 1143 (Conn. 2001) (denying cert.); 774
A.2d 1042 (Conn. Ct. App. 2001)
Question Presented:
When a municipality exercises its condemnation authority in such
a manner as to directly benefit a specific and identifiable private
interest, do the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United
States Constitution require the application of a heightened standard
of review in determining whether the condemnation is being carried
out for a valid public use?
Harris
County,
Texas
v. Simi Investment Co., Inc., S. Ct. No. 01-544
Cert. Denied: November 13, 2001
Lower Court Opinions: 13 F. Supp.2d 603 (S.D.
Tex.
1998); 236 F.3d 240 (5th Cir. 2000).
Question Presented:
1. Whether substantive due process claims
alleging deprivations of property are subsumed under the Takings
Clause.
[Questions 2 & 3 omitted.]
Winters v. Oregon, S. Ct. No.
01-386
Cert. Denied: Oct. 29, 2001
Lower Ct. Opinion: 10 P.3d 961(Ore. Ct. App. 1999).
Question Presented:
As a matter of law, is there a "taking" under the Fifth
and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States
when the Government, over the objection of the owner, repeatedly
physically invades and uses private property to construct a public
project on adjacent land, the physical invasion is temporary, and
the physical invasion causes no physical damage to that property?
Tilley v. Town of
Aberdeen, et al., S. Ct. No. 01-321
Cert. denied: Oct. 29, 2001
Lower Court Rulings: Unreported. 4th Circ. No. 01-1192; M.D.N.C. No.
1:98:CV00896.
Question presented:
Whether the takings, due
process, equal protection, and
conspiracy claims
were prudentially ripe. [Citing
Palazzolo.]
Weinberg v. Comcast Cablevision of
Philadelphia, L.P., S. Ct.
No. 00-1859
Cert. Denied: Oct. 1, 2001
Lower Court Ruling: 759 A.2d 395 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2000).
Questions Presented:
In addition to a due process claim (1.) there are two takings claims:
2.
Whether Pennsylvania’s Tenants’ Right to Cable Television Act is
unconstitutional because it effected a taking of Petitioner’s
Property without just compensation, by arbitrarily limiting the
measure of damages to “loss of value,” thereby creating, by
legislative fiat, a fixed, nominal payment of $1 as “just
compensation” for the occupation of Petitioner’s property, in
violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
3.
Whether Pennsylvania’s Tenants’ Right to Cable Television
Act is unconstitutional because the requirement that Petitioner pay
one-half of all expenses and fees for an arbitration proceeding to
which he did not consent, in an of itself, constitutes “a taking
without just compensation,” in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments.
Weir
v. City of Springfield, Illinois, S. Ct. No. 00-1801
Cert. Denied: Oct. 1, 2001
Lower Court Rulings: The orders of the Illinois Supreme Court,
Appellate Court, and Sangamon County Circuit Court are unreported.
Question
Presented:
The first question presented is whether the Takings
Clause of the Fifth Amendment, made applicable to the states by the
Fourteenth Amendment, precludes a municipality from charging the
owner of a landlocked parcel of land a fee to use a “private
road,” owned by the municipality as part of its municipal street
system, for ingress to and egress from the landowner’s residential
real estate located outside the boundaries of the municipality.
Askins v. County of Williamsburg,
S. Ct. No. 00-1915
Cert. Denied: Oct. 1, 2001
Lower Court Rulings: The
opinion of the Court of Appeals is unpublished (Unpublished Opinion
No. 2000-UP-552 (S.C. Ct. App. Aug. 22, 2000)) and the opinion of the
Court of Common Pleas is not reported.
Question Presented:
Whether
the judgments of the South Carolina courts that there had been an
implied dedication of real property owned by the Petitioner solely
because there had been no objection to use of the property by the
public constituted a taking of the Petitioner’s real property for a
public use without the compensation required by U.S. Const. amends. V
and XIV.
Phelps Dodge Corp. v. United States, S. Ct. No. 00-1464
Petition Filed: March 19, 2001
Lower Court Rulings: 9 P.3d 1069 (Ariz. 2000); 857 P.2d 1236 (Ariz.
1993).
Question Presented:
Does a sudden, unpredictable and retroactive change in judicial
precedent that revokes vested property rights in groundwater
constitute a taking of private property without just compensation in
violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution?
Greenspring Racquet Club Inc., et al. v. Baltimore County,
Maryland, S. Ct. No. 00-1227
Petition Filed: Jan. 29, 2001
Docketed: Jan 31, 2001
Lower Court Ruling: (unpublished) 2000 WL 1624496 (4th Cir. Oct. 31,
2000)
Questions Presented:
1. Whether a regulatory takings claim based on a land use
ordinance's failure to substantially advance a legitimate state
interest is categorically barred whenever the regulation is an
"ordinary zoning restriction" limiting height and density
and when "statements by local lawmakers set out legitimate
reasons" for imposing the height and density restrictions?
(App. 12-13, 14).
2. In light of Olech v. Village of Willowbrook, is a land use
ordinance creating irrational and wholly arbitrary classifications
and motivated by malice, bad faith and retaliatory intent immune
from a claim that it violates the equal protection clause?
3. In light of Williamson County Reg. Plan. Comm'n v. Hamilton
Bank, may federal causes of action be dismissed for failure to state
a claim upon which relief can be granted notwithstanding litigant's
request to stay all proceedings in federal court until the causes of
action are "ripened" in state court and litigant's express
"reservation" in the state action of all federal claims
which may be subsequently pursued?
Cayetano v. Chevron USA, S. Ct. No. 00-1198
Petition Filed: Jan. 24, 2001
Docketed: Jan. 24, 2001
Lower Court Ruling: 224 F.3d 1030 (9th Cir.)
Questions Presented:
1. Does the Takings Clause authorize a court to invalidate state
rent control or land use regulatory legislation on its face, without
regard to whether it diminishes economic value or use or causes any
physical invasion of the plaintiff's property, when the court
concludes that the statute does not substantially advance a
legislative purpose?
2. Does the facial constitutional validity of state legislation
depend on whether a federal court predicts that it will achieve its
objective?
Karuk Tribe of
Calif. v. United States,
S. Ct. No. 00-1012
Petition Filed: Dec. 18, 2000
Docketed: Dec. 20, 2000
Lower Court Ruling: 209 F.3d 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2000).
Question Presented:
1. Whether Indians of reservations established by
express statutory authorization, the locations of which were
determined by delegation to the Executive, have a compensable interest
in reservation property under the Fifth Amendment such that it may not
be taken by the government without payment of just compensation.
Boise Cascade Corp. v. Oregon, S. Ct. No. 00-1238
Petition Filed: Jan. 30, 2001
Docketed: Jan. 30, 2001
Lower Court Ruling: 991 P.2d 563 (Or. App. 1999)
Questions Presented:
1. Whether respondent's regulatory order forcing petitioner to
submit to the physical occupation of its timberland by northern
spotted owls constituted a physical taking of petitioner's property
for which just compensation is due.
2. Whether petitioner's regulatory takings claim, which arose
when respondent issued a self-described "Final Order"
denying petitioner's application for a timber harvesting permit, was
rendered "unripe" merely because petitioner did not seek a
completely different kind of permit from a separate federal agency
that lacked authority to authorize the harvesting under state law.
McKeithen v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., et
al., S. Ct. No. 00-1189
Petition Filed: Jan. 23, 2001
Docketed: Jan. 23, 2001
Lower Court Ruling: 226 F.3d 412 (5th Cir. 2000)
Questions Presented:
1. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decided
an important federal question in a way that conflicts with the
majority of the Court's opinions in Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel,
524 U.S. 498, 118 S. Ct. 2131, 141 L.Ed. 2d 451 (1998).
Did the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
improperly interpret the majority of the Court's opinion in Eastern
Enterprises to apply the Takings Clause to invalidate the funding
mechanism for a vital Louisiana program even though the statute held
unconstitutional does not impact an identifiable property interest
or fund?
2. There is a split in the United States Courts of Appeal as to
whether Eastern Enterprises supports invalidating a statute other
than the Coal Act. The United States Courts of Appeals for the
District of Columbia, Third, and Fourth Circuits have refused to
extend the Takings Clause analysis of Eastern Enterprises beyond the
Coal Act, and then only to parties in a substantially identical
position to Eastern Enterprises with respect to both the plurality
and Justice Kennedy's concurrence. Is the Takings Clause analysis of
Eastern Enterprises properly applied to a non-Coal Act statute that
only imposes a general financial assessment against a company
without identifying a particular property interest or fund?
3. Is it proper for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit to grant summary judgment invalidating the funding mechanism
for a vital Louisiana program on the basis that it violates the
Takings Clause of the United States Constitution even though the
Insurers failed to carry their substantial burden of proof in that
they failed to present any evidence to support essential elements of
their claim?
B&G Enterprises v. United States, S. Ct. No.
00-709
Petition Filed: Nov. 2, 2000
Docketed: Nov. 2, 2000
Denied: Feb. 20, 2001
Lower Court Rulings: 220 F.3d 1318 (Fed. Cir. 2000); 43 Fed. Cl. 523
(1999).
Questions Presented:
Whether block grants authorized by Congress in 42 U.S.C. s
300x-26(a) and implemented by the Department of Health and Human
Services and carried out by the states and their subdivisions
rendered the action taken by the states attributable to the federal
government as a taking of property under the Fifth Amendment to the
Constitution.
a. Whether an affirmative act to compel or coerce action of a
state that results in a taking is necessary to attribute the taking
to the federal government.
b. Whether the activities of the State of California enforcing a
ban on cigarette vending machines, pursuant to a federal block grant
program, are attributable to the federal government.
c. Whether a party seeking just compensation from the federal
government for state action must prove that the state was acting as
the common law agent of the federal government.
Hansen v.
Snohomish County,
S. Ct. No. 00-989
Petition Filed: Oct. 10, 2000
Docketed: Dec. 18, 2000
Lower Court Ruling: 97 Wash. App. 1083 (1999), cert.
denied, 10 P.3d 403 (2000) (table).
Questions Presented:
1. Whether a regulatory takings claim based on denial
of all “economically viable use” (Lucas
v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992)) may be
dismissed as a matter of law
by merely showing that there has not been a total deprivation of
value?
2. When regulations allow constructing a house on a
parcel, is that use a per se
“economically viable use” so that a takings claim may be dismissed
as a matter of law even
though undisputed expert testimony concludes that residential
construction is not economically reasonable or viable for a builder or
the land owner?
3. Where current government land use restrictions
require that 96% of a four acre parcel be left in its natural state to
serve as a public drainage/water detention basin for a 250 acre upland
area (owned by others), is there a taking of the 96% portion that is
required to be left economically idle?
4. Does the “ripeness” doctrine require dismissal
of a regulatory takings claim where a land owner has not sought a
permit for a particular use that is not economically viable?
Virgin v.
County of San Luis Obispo,
S. Ct. No. 00-960
Petition Filed: Dec. 12, 2000
Docketed: Dec. 12, 2000
Lower Court Opinions: from
the Cal. Ct. App. and the cert. denial from the S. Ct. are unreported.
Question Presented:
1. Is due process of law guaranteed by the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States denied
when state courts summarily dismiss concurrent jurisdiction federal
constitutional clams against local governments under 42 U.S.C. §
1983, for takings, equal protection, and substantive and procedural
due process violations, under a standard of review that “expressly
required” that the state court (a) “look only to the evidence
supporting” the governmental action, (b) discard “evidence
unfavorable” to the government, (c) accept only those inferences
from the evidence as drawn by the government, and (d) disregard
“even uncontradicted evidence”?
Barrett v.
Borough of Carlisle,
S. Ct. No. 00-977
Petition Filed: Dec. 11, 2000
Docketed: Dec. 15, 2000
Lower Court Opinions: from the 3rd Cir. and the federal
district court, M.D. Pa., are unreported.
Note:
The petitioner is pro se.
The petitioner alleges that the local historic district was never
properly certified and that landowners were denied due process during
the certification process, and that absent certification, the historic
district regulations and denial of building permits constitutes a
taking. The petitioner argues that the District Court misread Penn
Central Transp. Co. v. New York City to mean that historical
designation is never a takings and should not have dismissed his claim
due to res judicata.
Questions Presented:
1. Whether property owners were deprived of rights to
due process in alleged proceedings before the historic certification
authority, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983?
2. Whether property owners were deprived of rights to
just compensation for the regulation of their property, absent
Constitutionally valid historic certification, in violation of
42 U.S.C. § 1983?
3. Whether Petitioner established excusable neglect
or good cause for extending the time for filing a notice of appeal
under 42 U.S.C. § 2107(c)?
4. Whether the Appellate Court has jurisdiction to
hear the appeal?
New Pulaski
Co., L.P. v. Mayor and City of Baltimore,
S. Ct. 00-759
Lower Court Ruling: 217 F.3d 840 (4th Cir. July 20, 2000)
in Table of Decisions without Reported Opinions.
Text of unpublished disposition at 2000 WL 1005207.
Petition Filed: November 13, 2000
Question Presented:
1. In the finality requirement for the ripeness of a
constitutional claim inapplicable where the available
variance or exemption process requires a decision by a
“legislative/political” body?
Stevens Creek Quarry, Inc. v. Santa Clara County
Planning Commission, S. Ct. 00-491
Lower Court Rulings: unreported.
Petition Filed: September 25, 2000
Question Presented:
Was it error to convert the plaintiff's substantive
due process claim, which alleged the violation of a non-property-based
fundamental right, into a takings claim?
Louisiana v. Avenal, S. Ct. 00-456
Lower Court Rulings: 2000 WL 320460 (La. Ct. App. March 5,
2000) rehearing of 757 So. 2d 1 (La. Ct. App. 1999).
Petition Filed: September 20, 2000
Questions Presented:
Whether a State court's refusal to apply or even
recognize the preclusive effect of a Federal court's finding of fact
related to an identical issue of whether a "taking"
occurred constitutes a violation of the "Full Faith and Credit
Clause," the "Supremacy Clause" of the United States
Constitution and/or the federal "Full Faith and Credit"
statute.
Westside Quik Shop, Inc. v.
Stewart, S. Ct.
00-433
Lower Court Ruling: WL 823346 (S.C. June 21, 2000).
Petition Filed: September 19, 2000
Questions Presented:
Whether a State Legislature may, by statute,
designate a class of property, the ownership and use of which has
been legal within the State for decades and where the State has
taken specific action to require expenditures and investments to
maintain that property, as illegal "contraband" and
thereby avoid the constitutional duty to pay just compensation for
the taking of such property even though this Court held in Lucas
v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992) (quoting
Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith, 449 U.S. 155,
164 (1980)), that a "'State, by ipse dixit, may not transform
private property into public property without compensation'"?
Whether the court below erred in holding that
reasonable investment-backed expectations are part of every takings
case, even those cases in which the property owner has shown that he
has been deprived of all economically beneficial use of his
property?
Kinross Copper Corp. v.
Oregon, S. Ct. 00-431
Lower Court Ruling: 988 P.2d 400 (Or. Ct. App. 1999)
affirming prior Ct. of Appeals decision, 981 P.2d 833 (Or. Ct. App.
1999).
Petition Filed: September 18, 2000
Questions Presented:
When an unpatented mining right protected by federal
law is abrogated by a state regulation prohibiting discharge of
nonpolluting mine waters, does a taking occur under the Fifth
Amendment's Takings Clause?
Is a state regulation that prohibits the discharge
of nonpolluting mine waters, and thus prevents an unpatented mining
claim on federal lands from being developed, preempted by federal
law?
Does takings jurisprudence require a property owner
to show that it has a property interest in the very thing the state
seeks to regulate, rather than merely showing that the effect of the
regulation as applied to the petitioner denies it all economic use
of a federally recognized property right?
Can a state court, under the guise of stating that
the holder of an unpatented mining claim never had the right to
appropriate water for the mine and, therefore, never had the right
to discharge it as a part of its property right, thus avoid a
"taking," when at commonlaw it was not a nuisance for a
miner to discharge nonpolluting mine waters into streams?
Advance
Leasing and Development v. Hart (Hillsborough County),
S. Ct. 00-348
Petition Filed: Sept. 1, 2000
Questions Presented:
Whether the Eleventh Circuit's
after-the-fact, hypothetical consideration of any
conceivable justification for a local
government's zoning denial, at summary judgment without
trial by jury, conflicts with this Court's
requirements of a jury trial to examine the reasonableness
of the local government's proffered
justifications, as established by City of
Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd.,
526 U.S. 687, 119 S. Ct. 1624 (1999) ("Del
Monte Dunes").
Whether the Eleventh Circuit's
refusal to recognize a due process takings claim is
in direct conflict with this Court's decision in Del
Monte Dunes which expressly holds that a due
process takings claim is cognizable under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983.
Dunn v.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, S.
Ct. 00-341
Petition Filed: Aug. 30, 2000
Lower Court Rulings: Dunn v. Executive Office of Envtl.
Affairs, 725 N.E.2d 1087 (Mass. App. Ct. 2000) (table), petition
for cert. denied, 733 N.E.2d 1065 (Mass. 2000)
(table).
Questions Presented:
Whether the principle
of reasonable investment backed expectations should
apply to the Petitioners, who acquired their property
by inheritance.
Whether the
Petitioners can be deprived of a trial by jury in a
claim made under the State Declaratory Judgment Act.
Whether the
Petitioners can be denied just compensation, when the
proposed use of their property would not create a
public nuisance.
Troy v. Pierce County,
S. Ct. 00-163
Petition filed: July 31, 2000
Lower court ruling: 1999 WL 780997 (Wash. App. Div. 2)
Questions Presented:
In this case the government desires
to permanently preserve areas of land in a natural,
undisturbed state, and a County ordinance
accomplishes this by requiring owners of the selected
land, as a building permit condition, to
"protect" the selected area by deeding a
tract, easement, or land dedication to "the
County" or "the public", and, by
having county signs installed every 30 feet to mark
the boundaries of the preserved tract.
Where the owner's proposed
construction does not create the need for a land
preserve, is just compensation required under the
U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment (applied to the
States through the Fourteenth Amendment) for the
property conveyance and/or for the physical
occupation of the signs?
In acquiring the above tract, where
the County provides no hearing, nor any process for
getting compensation, and requires the conveyance to
be made by recording a plat of subdivision that
violates plat statutes (a gross misdemeanor), is
there just cause for damages for denial of due
process under the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment
and/or for deprivation of civil rights under 42
U.S.C. § 1983?
Since the above ordinance is applied
at development time, when it is common to have the
land as subject or collateral in financing contracts,
is the County's appropriation of a property interest
without any consideration of existing contract
interests or obligations, in violation of Article 1
§ 10 [1] of the U.S. Constitution: "No State
shall * * * pass any * * * Law impairing the
Obligation of Contracts * * *"?
Chevy Chase Land Co. of
Montgomery County, Md. v. United States,
S. Ct. No. 00-31
Petition filed: July 3, 2000
Lower court ruling: 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS (Fed.Cir.)
Questions Presented:
May a court re-define a property
interest, using new legal principles, to reject a
constitutional takings claim.
Where petitioner originally conveyed
only a right of way easement to a railroad, was the
property of the petitioner taken when the government
appropriated the property for a recreational trail
and/or other uses not intended when the easement was
conveyed.
Where the railroad to whom petitioner
conveyed a right of way easement abandoned that
easement, was the property of the petitioner taken
when the government thereafter appropriated the
property for its own use.
City of Los Angeles v. Ali,
S. Ct. No. 99-2084
Petition filed: June 27, 2000
Lower court ruling: 77 Cal. App. 4th (1999)
Questions Presented:
Whether the California Court of
Appeals erred in holding that a city requirement that
a landowner complete a land use development approval
process by itself constitutes a compensable
"temporary" regulatory taking under the
Fifth Amendment.
Whether the California Court of
Appeals erred by holding that a land-use regulation
that violates state law effects a temporary taking of
property on that basis alone.
Saboff v. St. Johns River
Water Management Dist., S. Ct. No.
99-2011
Petition filed: June 15, 2000
Lower court ruling: 200 F.3d 1356 (11th Cir. 2000)
Questions Presented:
If the State denies compensation to a
landowner, under state law, are the state court
proceedings res judicata to a Fifth Amendment taking
claim under section 1983.
Must a landowner reserve a Fifth
Amendment taking claim for subsequent litigation in
federal court if the Fifth Amendment taking claim
does not accrue until after exhaustion of state court
remedies.
If a Fifth Amendment taking claim
does not accrue until a landowner has been denied an
adequate post-deprivation remedy in the state court,
thus creating a separate Fifth Amendment
constitutional cause of action, is a formal written
reservation under Fields v. Sarasota Manatee
Airport Authority, 953 F. 2d 1299 (11th Cir.
1992) and Jennings v. Caddo Parrish School Board,
531 F. 2d 1331 (5th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 429
U.S. 897, 97 S. Ct. 260, 50 L. Ed. 2d 180 (1976),
necessary to preserve the right to proceed in federal
court after the state court has denied relief under
state law.
Miami-Dade County v. Agripost, Inc., S.
Ct. No. 99-1856
Petition Filed: May 18, 2000
Lower court ruling: 195 F.3d 1225 (11th Cir. 1999)
Questions Presented:
Does the Eleventh Circuit's exception to this
Court's rule against reversing state court judgments prevent state
courts from deciding whether regulatory actions should be reversed
as confiscatory in order to avoid permanent takings such as the
claimed $140,000,000 taking in question.
If a federal court lacks jurisdiction over a federal
regulatory taking claim because it is unripe, does the court
nevertheless have jurisdiction to adjudicate preclusion defenses.
By holding that a state takings claim was neither
before the court nor germane, did the Eleventh Circuit deprive the
County of its right to appeal the district court's exercise of
jurisdiction over, and its disposition of, the County's defenses to
that claim.
District Intown Properties
Ltd. Partnership v. District of Columbia,
S. Ct. No. 99-1666
Petition filed: April 17, 2000
Lower court ruling: 198 F.3d 874 (D.C. Cir. 1999)
Questions Presented:
When analyzing a governmental
regulation of property for Takings Clause purposes,
how should courts determine the relevant unit of
property in a case where a landowner owns several
geographically contiguous parcels, only some of which
are burdened by the regulation.
Does a governmental regulation of
property that requires a landowner to leave eight
contiguous lots in a completely undeveloped state as
a grass lawn deny "all economically beneficial
and productive use of land" within the meaning
of Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council,
505 U.S. 1003 (1992).
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