Argued
October 3, 2018
Reargued January 16, 2019
ON
WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE THIRD CIRCUIT No. 17-647.
The Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, passed an ordinance
requiring that "[a]ll cemeteries ... be kept open and
accessible to the general public during daylight hours."
Petitioner Rose Mary Knick, whose 90-acre rural property has
a small family graveyard, was notified that she was violating
the ordinance. Knick sought declaratory and injunctive relief
in state court on the ground that the ordinance effected a
taking of her property, but she did not bring an inverse
condemnation action under state law seeking compensation. The
Township responded by withdrawing the violation notice and
staying enforcement of the ordinance. Without an ongoing
enforcement action, the court held, Knick could not
demonstrate the irreparable harm necessary for equitable
relief, so it declined to rule on her request. Knick then
filed an action in Federal District Court under 42 U.S.C.
§1983, alleging that the ordinance violated the Takings
Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The District Court dismissed
her claim under Williamson County Regional Planning
Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S.
172, which held that property owners must seek just
compensation under state law in state court before bringing a
federal takings claim under §1983. The Third Circuit
affirmed.
Held:
1. A government violates the Takings Clause when it takes
property without compensation, and a property owner may bring
a Fifth Amendment claim under §1983 at that time. Pp.
5-20.
(a) In Williamson County, the Court held that, as
relevant here, a property developer's federal takings
claim was "premature" because he had not sought
compensation through the State's inverse condemnation
procedure. 473 U.S., at 197. The unanticipated consequence of
this ruling was that a takings plaintiff who complied with
Williamson County and brought a compensation claim
in state court would- on proceeding to federal court after
the unsuccessful state claim- have the federal claim barred
because the full faith and credit statute required the
federal court to give preclusive effect to the state
court's decision. San Remo Hotel, L. P. v. City and
County of San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323, 347. Pp. 5-6.
(b) This Court has long recognized that property owners may
bring Fifth Amendment claims for compensation as soon as
their property has been taken, regardless of any other
post-taking remedies that may be available to the property
owner. See Jacobs v. United States, 290 U.S. 13. The
Court departed from that understanding in Williamson
County and held that a taking gives rise not to a
constitutional right to just compensation, but instead gives
a right to a state law procedure that will eventually result
in just compensation. Just two years after Williamson
County, however, the Court returned to its traditional
understanding of the Fifth Amendment, holding that the
compensation remedy is required by the Constitution in the
event of a taking. First English Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S.
304. A property owner acquires a right to compensation
immediately upon an uncompensated taking because the taking
itself violates the Fifth Amendment. See San Diego Gas
& Elec. Co. v. San Diego, 450 U.S. 621, 654
(Brennan, J., dissenting). The property owner may, therefore,
bring a claim under §1983 for the deprivation of a
constitutional right at that time. Pp. 6-12.
(c) Williamson County's understanding of the
Takings Clause was drawn from Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto
Co., 467 U.S. 986, where the plaintiff sought to enjoin
a federal statute because it effected a taking, even though
the statute set up a mandatory arbitration procedure for
obtaining compensation. Id., at 1018. That case does
not support Williamson County, however, because
Congress-unlike the States-is free to require plaintiffs to
exhaust administrative remedies before bringing
constitutional claims. Williamson County also
analogized its new state-litigation requirement to federal
takings practice under the Tucker Act, but a claim for just
compensation brought under the Tucker Act is not a
prerequisite to a Fifth Amendment takings claim-it
is a Fifth Amendment takings claim. Williamson
County also looked to Parratt v. Taylor, 451
U.S. 527. But Parratt was not a takings case at all,
and the analogy from the due process context to the takings
context is strained. The poor reasoning of Williamson
County may be partially explained by the cir- cumstances
in which the state-litigation issue reached the Court, which
may not have permitted the Court to adequately test the logic
of the state-litigation requirement or consider its
implications. Pp. 12-16.
(d) Respondents read too broadly statements in prior opinions
that the Takings Clause "does not provide or require
that compensation shall be actually paid in advance of the
occupancy of the land to be taken. But the owner is entitled
to reasonable, certain and adequate provision for obtaining
compensation" after a taking. Cherokee Nation v.
Southern Kansas R. Co., 135 U.S. 641, 659. Those
statements concerned requests for injunctive relief, and the
availability of subsequent compensation meant that such an
equitable remedy was not available. Simply because the
property owner was not entitled to injunctive relief at the
time of the taking does not mean there was no violation of
the Takings Clause at that time. The history of takings
litigation provides valuable context. At the time of the
founding, there usually was no compensation remedy available
to property owners, who could obtain only retrospective
damages, as well as an injunction ejecting the government
from the property going forward. But in the 1870s, as state
courts began to recognize implied rights of action for
damages under the state equivalents of the Takings Clause,
they declined to grant injunctions because property owners
had an adequate remedy at law. Congress enabled property
owners to obtain compensation for takings by the Federal
Government when it passed the Tucker Act in 1887, and this
Court subsequently joined the state courts in holding that
the compensation remedy is required by the Takings Clause
itself. Today, because the federal and nearly all state
governments provide just compensation remedies to property
owners who have suffered a taking, equitable relief is
generally unavailable. As long as an adequate provision for
obtaining just compensation exists, there is no basis to
enjoin government action effecting a taking. Pp. 16-19.
2. The state-litigation requirement of Williamson
County is overruled. Several factors counsel in favor of
this decision. Williamson County was poorly reasoned
and conflicts with much of the Court's takings
jurisprudence. Because of its shaky foundations, the
rationale for the state-litigation requirement has been
repeatedly recast by this Court and the defenders of
Williamson County. The state-litigation requirement
also proved to be unworkable in practice because the San
Remo preclusion trap prevented takings plaintiffs from
ever bringing their claims in federal court, contrary to the
expectations of the Williamson County Court.
Finally, there are no reliance interests on the
state-litigation requirement. As long as post-taking
compensation remedies are available, governments need not
fear that federal courts will invalidate their regulations as
unconstitutional. Pp. 20-23.
862 F.3d 310, vacated and remanded.
ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, and KAVANAUGH, JJ., joined. THOMAS,
J., filed a concurring opinion. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting
opinion, in which GlNS-BURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ.,
joined.
OPINION
ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE
The
Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment states that
"private property [shall not] be taken for public use,
without just compensation." In Williamson County
Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson
City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985), we held that a property owner
whose property has been taken by a local government has not
suffered a violation of his Fifth Amendment rights-and thus
cannot bring a federal takings claim in federal court-until a
state court has denied his claim for just compensation under
state law.
The
Williamson County Court anticipated that if the
property owner failed to secure just compensation under state
law in state court, he would be able to bring a
"ripe" federal takings claim in federal court. See
id., at 194. But as we later held in San Remo
Hotel, L. P. v. City and County of San Francisco, 545
U.S. 323 (2005), a state court's resolution of a claim
for just compensation under state law generally has
preclusive effect in any subsequent federal suit. The takings
plaintiff thus finds himself in a Catch-22: He cannot go to
federal court without going to state court first; but if he
goes to state court and loses, his claim will be barred in
federal court. The federal claim dies aborning.
The
San Remo preclusion trap should tip us off that the
state-litigation requirement rests on a mistaken view of the
Fifth Amendment. The Civil Rights Act of 1871, after all,
guarantees "a federal forum for claims of
unconstitutional treatment at the hands of state
officials," and the settled rule is that
"exhaustion of state remedies 'is not a
prerequisite to an action under [42 U.S. C]
§1983.'" Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S.
477, 480 (1994) (quoting Patsy v. Board of Regents of
Fla., 457 U.S. 496, 501 (1982)). But the guarantee of a
federal forum rings hollow for takings plaintiffs, who are
forced to litigate their claims in state court.
We now
conclude that the state-litigation requirement imposes an
unjustifiable burden on takings plaintiffs, conflicts with
the rest of our takings jurisprudence, and must be overruled.
A property owner has an actionable Fifth Amendment takings
claim when the government takes his property without paying
for it. That does not mean that the government must provide
compensation in advance of a taking or risk having its action
invalidated: So long as the property owner has some way to
obtain compensation after the fact, governments need not fear
that courts will enjoin their activities. But it does mean
that the property owner has suffered a violation of his Fifth
Amendment rights when the government takes his property
without just compensation, and therefore may bring his claim
in federal court under §1983 at that time.
I
Petitioner
Rose Mary Knick owns 90 acres of land in Scott Township,
Pennsylvania, a small community just north of Scranton. Knick
lives in a single-family home on the property and uses the
rest of the land as a grazing area for horses and other farm
animals. The property includes a small graveyard where the
ancestors of Knick's neighbors are allegedly buried. Such
family cemeteries are fairly common in Pennsylvania, where
"backyard burials" have long been permitted.
In
December 2012, the Township passed an ordinance requiring
that "[a]ll cemeteries ... be kept open and accessible
to the general public during daylight hours." The
ordinance defined a "cemetery" as "[a] place
or area of ground, whether contained on private or public
property, which has been set apart for or otherwise utilized
as a burial place for deceased human beings." The
ordinance also authorized Township "code
enforcement" officers to "enter upon any
property" to determine the existence and location of a
cemetery. App. 21-23.
In
2013, a Township officer found several grave markers on
Knick's property and notified her that she was violating
the ordinance by failing to open the cemetery to the public
during the day. Knick responded by seeking declaratory and
injunctive relief in state court on the ground that the
ordinance effected a taking of her property. Knick did not
seek compensation for the taking by bringing an "inverse
condemnation" action under state law. Inverse
condemnation is "a cause of action against a
governmental defendant to recover the value of property which
has been taken in fact by the governmental defendant."
United States v. Clarke, 445 U.S. 253, 257 (1980)
(quoting D. Hagman, Urban Planning and Land Development
Control Law 328 (1971)). Inverse condemnation stands in
contrast to direct condemnation, in which the government
initiates proceedings to acquire title under its eminent
domain authority. Pennsylvania, like every other State
besides Ohio, provides a state inverse condemnation action.
26 Pa. Cons. Stat. §502(c) (2009).[1]
In
response to Knick's suit, the Township withdrew the
violation notice and agreed to stay enforcement of the
ordinance during the state court proceedings. The court,
however, declined to rule on Knick's request for
declaratory and injunctive relief because, without an ongoing
enforcement action, she could not demonstrate the irreparable
harm necessary for equitable relief.
Knick
then filed an action in Federal District Court under 42
U.S.C. §1983, alleging that the ordinance violated the
Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.[2] The District
Court dismissed Knick's takings claim under
Williamson County because she had not pursued an
inverse condemnation action in state court. 2016 WL 4701549,
*5-*6 (MD Pa., Sept. 8, 2016). On appeal, the Third Circuit
noted that the ordinance was "extraordinary and
constitutionally suspect," but affirmed the District
Court in light of Williamson County. 862 F.3d 310,
314 (2017).
We
granted certiorari to reconsider the holding of
Williamson County that property owners must seek
just compensation under state law in state court before
bringing a federal takings claim under §1983. 583 U.S.
__ (2018).
II
In
Williamson County, a property developer brought a
takings claim under §1983 against a zoning board that
had rejected the developer's proposal for a new
subdivision. Williamson County held that the
developer's Fifth Amendment claim was not
"ripe" for two reasons. First, the developer still
had an opportunity to seek a variance from the appeals board,
so any taking was therefore not yet final. 473 U.S., at
186-194. Knick does not question the validity of this
finality requirement, which is not at issue here.
The
second holding of Williamson County is that the
developer had no federal takings claim because he had not
sought compensation "through the procedures the State
ha[d] provided for doing so." Id., at 194. That
is the holding Knick asks us to overrule. According to the
Court, "if a State provides an adequate procedure for
seeking just compensation, the property owner cannot claim a
violation of the [Takings] Clause until it has used the
procedure and been denied just compensation."
Id., at 195. The Court concluded that the
developer's federal takings claim was
"premature" because he had not sought compensation
through the State's inverse condemnation procedure.
Id., at 197.
The
unanticipated consequences of this ruling were not clear
until 20 years later, when this Court decided San
Remo. In that case, the takings plaintiffs complied with
Williamson County and brought a claim for
compensation in state court. 545 U.S., at 331. The complaint
made clear that the plaintiffs sought relief only under the
takings clause of the State Constitution, intending to
reserve their Fifth Amendment claim for a later federal suit
if the state suit proved unsuccessful. Id., at
331-332. When that happened, however, and the plaintiffs
proceeded to federal court, they found that their federal
claim was barred. This Court held that the full faith and
credit statute, 28 U.S.C. §1738, required the federal
court to give preclusive effect to the state court's
decision, blocking any subsequent consideration of whether
the plaintiff had suffered a taking within the meaning of the
Fifth Amendment. 545 U.S., at 347. The adverse state court
decision that, according to Williamson County, gave
rise to a ripe federal takings claim simultaneously barred
that claim, preventing the federal court from ever
considering it.
The
state-litigation requirement relegates the Takings Clause
"to the status of a poor relation" among the
provisions of the Bill of Rights. Dolan v. City of
Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 392 (1994). Plaintiffs asserting
any other constitutional claim are guaranteed a federal forum
under §1983, but the state-litigation requirement
"hand[s] authority over federal takings claims to state
courts." San Remo, 545 U.S., at 350 (Rehnquist,
C. J., concurring in judgment). Fidelity to the Takings
Clause and our cases construing it requires overruling
Williamson County and restoring takings claims to
the full-fledged constitutional status the Framers envisioned
when they included the Clause among the other protections in
the Bill of Rights.
III
A
Contrary
to Williamson County, a property owner has a claim
for a violation of the Takings Clause as soon as a government
takes his property for public use without paying for it. The
Clause provides: "[N]or shall private property be taken
for public use, without just compensation." It does not
say: "Nor shall private property be taken for public
use, without an available procedure that will result in
compensation." If a local government takes private
property without paying for it, that government has violated
the Fifth Amendment-just as the Takings Clause says-without
regard to subsequent state court proceedings. And the
property owner may sue the gov- ernment at that time in
federal court for the "deprivation" of a right
"secured by the Constitution." 42 U.S.C.
§1983.
We have
long recognized that property owners may bring Fifth
Amendment claims against the Federal Government as soon as
their property has been taken. The Tucker Act, which provides
the standard procedure for bringing such claims, gives the
Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction to "render judgment
upon any claim against the United States founded either upon
the Constitution" or any federal law or contract for
damages "in cases not sounding in tort." 28 U.S.C.
§1491(a)(1). We have held that "[i]f there is a
taking, the claim is 'founded upon the Constitution'
and within the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims to hear
and determine." United States v. Causby, 328
U.S. 256, 267 (1946). And we have explained that "the
act of taking" is the "event which gives rise to
the claim for compensation." United States v.
Dow, 357 U.S. 17, 22 (1958).
The
Fifth Amendment right to full compensation arises at the time
of the taking, regardless of post-taking remedies that may be
available to the property owner. That principle was confirmed
in Jacobs v. United States, 290 U.S. 13 (1933),
where we held that a property owner found to have a valid
takings claim is entitled to compensation as if it had been
"paid contemporaneously with the taking"-that is,
the compensation must generally consist of the total value of
the property when taken, plus interest from that time.
Id., at 17 (quoting Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v.
United States, 261 U.S. 299, 306 (1923)). We rejected
the view of the lower court that a property owner is entitled
to interest only when the government provides a particular
remedy-direct condemnation proceedings- and not when the
owner brings a takings suit under the Tucker Act. "The
form of the remedy d[oes] not qualify the right. It rest[s]
upon the Fifth Amendment." 290 U.S., at 16.
Jacobs
made clear that, no matter what sort of procedures the
government puts in place to remedy a taking, a property owner
has a Fifth Amendment entitlement to compensation as soon as
the government takes his property without paying for it.
Whether the government does nothing, forcing the owner to
bring a takings suit under the Tucker Act, or whether it
provides the owner with a statutory compensation remedy by
initiating direct condemnation proceedings, the owner's
claim for compensation "rest[s] upon the Fifth
Amendment."
Although
Jacobs concerned a taking by the Federal Government,
the same reasoning applies to takings by the States. The
availability of any particular compensation remedy, such as
an inverse condemnation claim under state law, cannot
infringe or restrict the property owner's federal
constitutional claim-just as the existence of a state action
for battery does not bar a Fourth Amendment claim of
excessive force. The fact that the State has provided a
property owner with a procedure that may subsequently result
in just compensation cannot deprive the owner of his Fifth
Amendment right to compensation under the Constitution,
leaving only the state law right. And that is key because it
is the existence of the Fifth Amendment right that allows the
owner to proceed directly to federal court under §1983.
Williamson
County had a different view of how the Takings Clause
works. According to Williamson County, a taking does
not give rise to a federal constitutional right to just
compensation at that time, but instead gives a right to a
state law procedure that will eventually result in just
compensation. As the Court put it, "if a State provides
an adequate procedure for seeking just compensation, the
property owner cannot claim a violation of the [Takings]
Clause until it has used the procedure and been denied just
compensation." 473 U.S., at 195. In the absence of a
state remedy, the Fifth Amendment right to compensation would
attach immediately. But, under Williamson County,
the presence of a state remedy qualifies the right,
preventing it from vesting until exhaustion of the state
procedure. That is what Jacobs confirmed could not
be done.
Just
two years after Williamson County, in First
English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of
Los Angeles,482 U.S. 304 (1987), the Court returned to
the understanding that the Fifth Amendment right to
compensation automatically arises at the time the government
takes property without paying for it. Relying heavily on
Jacobs and other Fifth Amendment precedents
neglected by Williamson County, First English held
that a property owner is entitled to compensation for the
temporary loss of his property. We explained that
"government action that works a taking of property
rights necessarily implicates the 'constitutional
obligation to pay just compensation.'" 482 U.S., at
315. Because of "the self-executing character" of
the Takings Clause "with respect to compensation,"
a property owner has a constitutional claim for just
compensation at the time of the taking. Ibid,
(quoting 6 P. Nichols, Eminent Domain ยง25.41 (3d rev.
ed. 1972)). The government's post-taking actions (there,
repeal of the challenged ordinance) cannot nullify the
property ...