Supreme Court Will Review Fifth Circuit Ruling that Creates a Catch-22 for Takings Claims Against State Governments

 

/Today, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Devillier v. Texas, an important takings case. Together with the Cato Institute, I filed an amicus brief urging the Court to take and reverse this terrible decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. I hope they will now do exactly that!

I previously wrote about the issues at stake in this case here:

In its important decision in Knick v. Township of Scott (2019), the the Supreme Court reversed Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank, a 1985 decision that made it almost impossible to bring takings cases against state and local governments in federal courts….

In a forceful opinion for the Court, Chief Justice John Roberts denounced this "Catch-22" and emphasized that "[a] property owner has an actionable Fifth Amendment takings claim when the government takes his property without paying for it…."...more