Constitutional Law Commons^™

Incomplete Compensation For Takings, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

If a tribunal determines that a state actor has expropriated foreign investment property, or, under Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), that a state actor has adopted a regulation that is "tantamount to" an expropriation of foreign investment property, then that tribunal must determine the amount of compensation owed. International law has developed methods to determine the size of a compensation award when a state formally expropriates property. But the notion, reflected in Chapter 11 of NAFTA, that states may be required to pay compensation to foreign investors for what are, in effect, regulatory takings, is …

The Power Of Congress "Without Limitation": The Property Clause And Federal Regulation Of Private Property, Peter A. Appel

Scholarly Works

Congress has overlooked a powerful tool for regulating within state jurisdictions: the Property Clause of the United States Constitution. The United States Government owns land in every state and approximately thirty percent of the total land in the United States. The federal government's authority to regulate its property within states derives from the Property Clause and has been described by the Supreme Court as "without limitation."

Professor Appel traces the historical development of the Constitution's Property Clause, from its pre-constitutional origins through modern Supreme Court decisions and academic conceptions. Professor Appel compares the narrow view of Property Clause scholarship - …

When Lochner Met Dolan: The Attempted Transformation Of American Land Use Law By Constitutional Interpretation, Ronald H. Rosenberg, Nancy Stroud

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Just And Unjust Compensation: The Future Of The Navigational Servitude In Condemnation Cases, Alan T. Ackerman, Noah Eliezer Yanich

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Rands, expanded the navigational servitude doctrine governing the federal government's power over land adjoining a navigable waterway by severely qualifying the government's Fifth Amendment obligation to compensate the landowner. This Article addresses the issue in the following ways: Part I surveys Congress' power to regulate navigable waters under the Commerce Clause. Part II summarizes the development of the navigational servitude doctrine and some of its inhibitory effects on waterfront development, especially under Rands. It explains the fundamental unfairness of the Rands principle and demonstrates why this constitutional rule …

Palazzolo V. Rhode Island: The Supreme Court's Expansion Of Subsequent Owners' Rights Under The Takings Clause (Symposium: The Thirteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Leon D. Lazer

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Emergence Of Private Land-Use Controls In Large-Scale Subdivisions: The Companion Story To Village Of Euclid V. Ambler Realty Co., Gerald Korngold

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Everyone Benefits, Everyone Pays: Does The Fifth Amendment Mandate Compensation When Property Is Damaged During The Course Of Police Activities?, C. Wayne Owen Jr.

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, along with similar provisions in state constitutions, forbids the taking of private property by the government for a public use without just compensation. Despite this protection, many courts have denied takings claims made by innocent third party landowners when police officers caused damage to their property during the course of executing their official duties. These courts held that the damage was not for a "public use" in the narrow sense, and have refused to analyze the claims under takings jurisprudence. This narrow view of "public use" ignores the fact that society as …

Just Compensation, Incentives, And Social Meanings, Hanoch Dagan

Michigan Law Review

In Takings and Distributive Justice, I proposed a progressive interpretation of the Compensation Clause. In his response, published in this issue, Professor Lunney challenges the plausibility and the desirability of my interpretation and proposes an alternative. This Essay compares our approaches. It concludes that Professor Lunney's careful examination of the public choice analysis of takings does refine my theory. Contrary to Professor Lunney's claims, however, these refinements reinforce - rather than undermine - the viability of a progressive takings doctrine. Parts I and II set the stage by summarizing the principal claims made, respectively, in my original Article and in …

Takings, Efficiency, And Distributive Justice: A Response To Professor Dagan, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In A Critical Reexamination of the Takings Jurisprudence, I addressed an efficiency problem that arises when the government attempts to change property rights in a manner that burdens a very few for the benefit of the very many. Specifically, in the absence of compensation, the collective action advantage of the few in organizing to oppose the proposed measure will often give them a decided edge against the many. As a result of that advantage, the few will too often be able to persuade the legislature not to act, even when an objective evaluation of the proposal's costs and benefits would …

Private Property Rights And Telecommunications Policy: Hearing Before The H. Comm. On The Judiciary, 106th Cong., Mar. 21, 2000 (Statement Of Viet D. Dinh, Prof. Of Law, Geo. U. L. Center), Viet D. Dinh

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.

Property Rights In John Marshall's Virginia: The Case Of Crenshaw And Crenshaw V. Slate River Company, 33 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1175 (2000), J. Gordon Hylton

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Forgotten Federalism: The Takings Clause And Local Land Use Decisions, Melvyn R. Durchslag

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Marshall Court And Property Rights: A Reappraisal, 33 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1023 (2000), James W. Ely Jr.

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Kass V. Kass, Blazing Legal Trails In The Field Of Human Reproductive Technology, Kelly Summers

Cleveland State Law Review

The decision in Kass illustrates a situation where well-founded common law contract principles were applied to a novel reproductive issue in order to respond to rapidly evolving technological progress. However, this legal dilemma presents a variable that warrants special attention. The parties involved in the case at hand struggled for control of a possible human life; Mrs. Kass hoped to preserve the pre-zygotes for future implantation attempts, and Mr. Kass sought to avoid the tribulations associated with compulsory parenthood. This Comment will evaluate the decisions rendered by both the Supreme Court of New York and the New York Court of …

When Should Rights "Trump"? An Examination Of Speech And Property, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Landscape Of Constitutional Property, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The Constitution contains two clauses that protect persons against governmental interference with their property. The Due Process Clause provides that "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The Takings Clause adds, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Both provisions appear to impose a threshold condition that a claimant have some "property" at stake before the protections associated with the Clause apply. Thus, under the Due Process Clause, it would seem that a claimant must have an interest in "property" (or in "life" or "liberty") before …

Should Lucas V. South Carolina Coastal Council Protect Where The Wild Things Are? Of Beavers, Bob-O-Links, And Other Things That Go Bump In The Night, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council is one of several recent Supreme Court decisions in which the Court used the Just Compensation Clause as a "weapon of reaction" to strike down an offending land use restriction. In Lucas, the target of the Court's animus was a state law prohibiting a landowner from developing two beachfront lots. The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the law as a legitimate exercise of the State's police power to protect the public from harm in the face of a takings challenge by the landowner. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the South Carolina court's talismatic …

Uncoupling The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier

Articles

The law of takings couples together matters that should be treated independently. The conventional view, shared by courts and commentators alike, has been that any takings case can be resolved in one of two ways: either there is a taking and compensation is due, or there is no taking and no compensation is due. These results are fine as long as one holding or the other serves the two central concerns of the Takings Clause - eficiency and justice. But a problem arises when the two purposes behind the law of takings come into cordhct, as they readily might. It …

Making Something Out Of Nothing: The Law Of Takings And Phillips V. Washington Legal Foundation, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier

Articles

Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation held that interest on principal amounts deposited into IOLTA accounts is the property of the various clients who handed over the money but expressed no view as to whether the Texas IOLTA program worked a taking, or, if it did, whether any compensation was due. The debates among the justices about the meaning of private property, argued in terms of contextual and conceptual severance, are unlikely to prove fruitful. We elaborate a better approach in terms of the underlying purposes of just compensation. We conclude that efficiency and justice are best served by uncoupling matters …

The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller

Articles

If your house and fields are worth more separately, divide them; if you want to leave a ring to your child now and grandchild later, split the ownership in a trust. The American law of property encourages owners to subdivide resources freely. Hidden within the law, however, is a boundary principle that limits the right to subdivide private property into wasteful fragments. While people often create wealth when they break up and recombine property in novel ways, owners may make mistakes, or their self-interest may clash with social welfare. Property law responds with diverse doctrines that prevent and abolish excessive …

The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

If your house and fields are worth more separately, divide them; if you want to leave a ring to your child now and grandchild later, split the ownership in a trust. The American law of property encourages owners to subdivide resources freely. Hidden within the law, however, is a boundary principle that limits the right to subdivide private property into wasteful fragments. While people often create wealth when they break up and recombine property in novel ways, owners may make mistakes, or their self-interest may clash with social welfare. Property law responds with diverse doctrines that prevent and abolish excessive …

Deterrence And Distribution In The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier

Articles

Supreme Court decisions over the last three-quarters of a century have turned the words of the Takings Clause into a secret code that only a momentary majority of the Court is able to understand. The Justices faithfully moor their opinions to the particular terms of the Fifth Amendment, but only by stretching the text beyond recognition. A better approach is to consider the purposes of the Takings Clause, efficiency and justice, and go anew from there. Such a method reveals that in some cases there are good reasons to require payment by the government when it regulates property, but not …

Ultra Vires Takings, Matthew D. Zinn

Michigan Law Review

When does legislative or administrative regulatory action "go[] too far" and effectively amount to an .appropriation of private property for which the Fifth Amendment requires just compensation? This question has turned out to be one of the thorniest in American constitutional law. The Supreme Court has identified several circumstances in which one can expect to find a regulatory taking, but its numerous pronouncements on the subject give no clear rule to distinguish compensable takings from noncompensable interference with property rights. Notwithstanding its volume, the commentary on the Takings Clause by and large addresses only proper governmental action that rises to …

Lest We Forget: Buchanan V. Warley And Constitutional Jurisprudence Of The "Progressive Era", Richard A. Epstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

The two principal papers in this collection are devoted to an analysis of one of the Supreme Court's landmark decisions of the Progressive era, Buchanan v. Warley.' Both David Bernstein and Michael Klarman reveal ambitions that go beyond a single case, as each discusses in detail a large part of the Progressive era jurisprudence on race relations that set the stage for Buchanan v. Warley. A short introduction is hardly the place to quibble with these papers on points of detail. But it is the place to raise one neglected theme that requires fresh emphasis. The constitutional jurisprudence that led …

The Original Understanding Of The Takings Clause, William Michael Treanor

Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute Papers & Reports

The champions of the property rights movement claim that they are fighting to restore the original understanding of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. They invoke James Madison and other founding fathers as support for proposed statutes that require the federal government to pay property owners when it prevents them from harming the environment or jeopardizing the survival of endangered species. Wetlands regulation, it is often said, "takes" property by diminishing its value, and the founders adopted the Takings Clause to ensure that, when government regulations diminished the value of property, the owner would receive compensation. Increasing numbers of …

Transferable Development Rights Trpa And Takings: The Role Of Tdrs In The Constitutional Takings Analysis, William Hadle Littlewood

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.

Establishment Of Religion, Court Of Appeals: Park Slope Jewish Center V. Congregation B'Nai Jacob

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Governmental Takings, Court Of Appeals: Kim V. City Of New York

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Governmental Takings, Court Of Appeals: Anello V. Zoning Board Of Appeals Of The Village Of Dobbs Ferry

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Batch V. Town Of Chapel Hill - Takings Law And Exactions: Where Should North Carolina Stand?, Elizabeth K. Arias

Campbell Law Review

This note argues that the North Carolina Supreme Court improperly decided Batch v. Town of Chapel Hill by ruling on a mere technicality. Instead the court should have focused on the nature of the town's ordinance and the required exaction and should have addressed Dr. Batch's takings claim. Proper analysis of Dr. Batch's claim indicates that the condition the Town of Chapel Hill imposed was an unconstitutional exaction. Part I of this note sets out the factual background and issues raised by the Batch decision and details the reasoning of both the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the North …