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The First Constitutional Tort: The Remedial Revolution In Nineteenth-Century State Just Compensation Law, Robert Brauneis

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article traces the change in the remedial framework of nineteenth-century owner-initiated state constitutional just compensation litigation, and explores the relationship between that change and substantive changes in just compensation doctrine. Through the Civil War, owners complaining of government-sanctioned seizure of their property brought common-law tort actions against whomever might be held liable under ordinary tort and agency law. Defendants in those suits claimed that some piece of legislation altered tort law to shield them from liability for their acts. Plaintiff owners responded that the legislation on which defendants relied was void, because it purported to authorize acts that amounted …