Murr v. Wisconsin

Case Updates

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Wisconsin appeals court’s ruling analyzing the two lots as a single unit. Viewed as a single unit of which only a portion was affected by the regulatory restriction, the Court held that the property was not “taken” as a matter of the Court’s regulatory takings law. The Court explained that the test for determining the relevant unit of property is “whether reasonable expectations about property ownership would lead a landowner to anticipate that his holdings would be treated as one parcel, or, instead, as separate tracts.” In making this determination, courts must consider a number of factors, including the treatment of the land under state and local law, the physical characteristics of the land, and the prospective value of the regulated land.

The U.S. Chamber urged the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify the test for determining the relevant parcel for the purpose of analyzing whether a regulation has resulted in at least a partial “taking” of private property. According to the Chamber’s amicus brief, the Supreme Court’s multi-factor test for determining whether a “partial regulatory taking” has occurred has fostered widespread confusion and inconsistent results among the lower courts. The brief explains that, in the absence of meaningful guidance, lower courts often utilize an ad hoc approach that tends to restrict, rather than recognize, property rights. The Chamber’s brief asked the Court to use this case to help bring much-needed clarity to this area of Takings Clause jurisprudence. The Chamber’s brief suggests that, in this and similar cases, the relevant “parcel” should be defined by an objective assessment of whether a tract of land has independent economic viability.

Jeremy B. Rosen and Felix Shafir of Horvitz Levy LLP served as counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center.