Forum
U.S. Supreme Court
Case Status
Decided
Docket Number
13-288
Term
Cert. Denied
Lower Court Opinion
Questions Presented
1. Whether the Ninth Circuit effectively nullified the regulatory taking doctrine recognized in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104 (1978), and created clear conflicts with rulings of the Federal Circuit by refusing to recognize a regulatory taking caused by a rent control law that singled out one property owner to bear the burden of an 80% loss in the value of its property and denied the owner return on capital in an escalating real estate market, because the property had already been subject to less onerous regulation at the time of purchase and because it did not lose 100% of its value.
2. Whether the Ninth Circuit erred under Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), and Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., 544 U.S. 528 (2005), in refusing to give any weight to the district court’s factual findings that the government’s asserted public use justification for a taking was a mere pretext for transferring the value of the land to a private group and that the transfer did not serve any legitimate purpose—thereby exacerbating the confusion in the lower courts about the effect of a finding that a regulation was enacted pretextually in establishing a private taking and/or a substantive due process violation
Case Updates
Cert. petition denied
January 13, 2014
U.S. Chamber asks U.S. Supreme Court to consider Ninth Circuit regulatory takings case
November 06, 2013
The U.S. Chamber and other business groups urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that rejected a property owner's Takings Clause claim where a local rent control regulation concededly denied the owner of over 80% of the value of its property. The Chamber's amicus brief argued that the Ninth Circuit erroneously concluded that property owners may not bring Takings Clause claims when the property had already been subject to regulation at the time of purchase.
Further, the Chamber explained that the Ninth Circuit and California have erected significant procedural hurdles that have made it exceedingly difficult - and rare - for Takings Clause claims to be adjudicated on the merits in the Ninth Circuit. If left to stand, the Ninth Circuit’s decision below will likely mean that, even if a case manages to make it past the procedural hurdles to the merits stage, there will never be another fully-litigated regulatory taking case from that circuit because they will be dismissed prior to trial.
Joining the Chamber on the brief are the National Federation of Independent Business and the Manufactured Housing Institute.
Jeremy B. Rosen, Steven S. Fleischman, and Lisa M. Freeman of Horvitz & Levy LLP represented the U.S. Chamber as co-counsel to the National Chamber Litigation Center, Inc.