A local ordinance in Town of Scott, Pennsylvania declared all burial grounds to be open to the public. An owner of a family burial plot challenged the ordinance as a taking. The core language of Chief Justice John Roberts for the five member Supreme Court majority in this regulatory taking action is:
We conclude that a government violates the Takings Clause when it takes property without compensation, and that a property owner may bring a Fifth Amendment claim under §1983 at that time. That does not as a practical matter mean that government action or regulation may not proceed in the absence of contemporaneous compensation.
Given the availability of post-taking compensation, barring the government from acting will ordinarily not be appropriate. But because the violation is complete at the time of the taking, pursuit of a remedy in federal court need not await any subsequent state action. Takings claims against local governments should be handled the same as other claims under the Bill of Rights. Williamson County erred in holding otherwise.
Basically the majority overturned a case which held that a cause of action against a state entity does not accrue until after the state has failed to pay just compensation after a condemnation action has been concluded. The precedent is 34 years young and because it interprets the Constitution is entitled to little deference, according to Chief Justice Roberts. The practical effect is to open federal courts to 1983 actions as an alternative to inverse condemnation actions in state courts. I suppose from a plaintiff's point of view it is attractive because attorneys fees can be recovered under 42 USC 1988.
It is a remarkably nationalist ruling by a conservative majority which has generally inclined toward deference to state sovereignty. Doesn't bother me because I think federalism is a myth (the sovereign peoples of the Dakotas, etc.) that would be best replaced by the principle of subsidiarity - favoring local decision making subject to conformity to basic principles.
- GWC
Opinion analysis: Court overrules takings precedent, allowing more suits in federal court - SCOTUSblog: In its long-awaited opinion in Knick v. Township of Scott, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that plaintiffs alleging that local governments have violated the takings clause may proceed directly in federal court, rather than first litigating in state court. The opinion overrules a 34-year-old precedent.
by Miriam Seifter
In its long-awaited opinion in Knick v. Township of Scott, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that plaintiffs alleging that local governments have violated the takings clause may proceed directly in federal court, rather than first litigating in state court. The opinion overrules a 34-year-old precedent, Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank, triggering a sharp dissent and another debate among the justices about the meaning of stare decisis. The majority opinion also rests on a reading of the takings clause—that a constitutional violation occurs at the moment property is “taken,” even if compensation is paid later—that may have consequences beyond this case.
The takings clause of the federal Constitution provides: “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” This takings case arose from a dispute between petitioner Rose Mary Knick and the township of Scott, Pennsylvania. Knick has a small graveyard on her property, and the township attempted to enforce against her an ordinance requiring such properties to be open to the public during daytime hours. Knick alleged an unconstitutional taking, but a federal court dismissed her suit because she had not first sought compensation in state court.
That brings us to Williamson County. The court held there that the plaintiff could not bring a takings claim in federal court until the plaintiff had pursued an inverse-condemnation action—that is, a lawsuit seeking compensation for the alleged taking—in state court. The Williamson County court drew upon two principles from prior case law: first, that “because the Fifth Amendment proscribes takings without just compensation, no constitutional violation occurs until just compensation has been denied.” Second, the court invoked a line of cases, starting with Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas Railway Co. in 1890, for the proposition that governments need not pay compensation at the time of the property deprivation as long as, at that time, they make available a “reasonable, certain, and adequate” mechanism for recovering such compensation after the fact.
The Williamson County decision has generated substantial criticism, due primarily to its effects on local takings plaintiffs. For one, Williamson County’s acceptance of inverse-condemnation suits in state courts as a “reasonable, certain, and adequate” recovery mechanism, and the consequence that local takings plaintiffs must proceed first in state court, means that takings plaintiffs are differently situated from other constitutional plaintiffs, who can go straight to federal court. (Defenders of Williamson County argue this is because the takings clause is different from other constitutional rights—more on that shortly.) Perhaps more strikingly, application of the full faith and credit statute, as the court explained in San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco, often means that local takings plaintiffs are barred from federal court altogether, a consequence that Williamson County did not foreshadow or perhaps even foresee.
The majority opinion in Knick, written by Chief Justice John Roberts on behalf of himself and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, overrules Williamson County. The majority concludes that Williamson County’s “state-litigation requirement imposes an unjustifiable burden on takings plaintiffs” and “conflicts with the rest of our takings jurisprudence.” In reaching this conclusion, the Supreme Court does not rely on any of the narrow rationales described in my earlier posts about the case—including the U.S. solicitor general’s proposed interpretations of Sections 1983 and 1331, and Knick’s supplemental theory based on whether and when the government admits a taking has occurred. Rather, the majority rejects the proposition that the solicitor general (echoed now by the dissent) described as uncontested and over a century-old: that a taking does not occur at the time of the property deprivation so long as an adequate mechanism for compensation is available. Instead, the rule the court announces is that “a government violates the Takings Clause when it takes property without compensation, and … a property owner may bring a Fifth Amendment claim under § 1983 at that time.”
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