First English Lutheran Church v. Los Angeles County

482 U.S. 304

Case Year: 1987

Case Ruling: 6-3, Reversed and Remanded

Opinion Justice: Rehnquist

FACTS

In 1957 the First English Evangelical Lutheran Church purchased a twenty-one-acre parcel of land in a canyon along the banks of Mill Creek in the Angeles National Forest. The creek was a natural drainage channel for a watershed area owned by the National Forest Service. On a twelve-acre section of the property the church operated the “Lutherglen” campground, a retreat center and recreation area for handicapped children.

In July 1977 a forest fire in the hills above Lutherglen destroyed 3,860 acres of watershed, creating a flood hazard, and a rainstorm the following year caused the creek to exceed its banks. The flooding destroyed the Lutherglen buildings.

Los Angeles County concluded that the flood potential in the area was a danger to public safety and adopted an interim ordinance in 1979 prohibiting the construction of any building in the flood-prone area. The church filed an inverse condemnation complaint charging that the Los Angeles Flood Control District was responsible for some of the conditions leading to the flooding and requesting monetary damages for the loss of Lutherglen. California courts denied the requested relief, applying the state supreme court’s decision in Agins v. Tiburon (1979), in which the state high court ruled that a property owner who claims that a land-use regulation has taken property without compensation must file an action seeking invalidation of the regulation and may not simply demand compensation. Furthermore,Agins held that the Fifth Amendment, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, does not require compensation for a temporary regulatory taking that is ultimately invalidated by the courts. The Supreme Court accepted the case to decide whether the Agins holding properly interpreted the Takings Clause.

 

ARGUMENTS

CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT.

In this case the California Court of Appeal held that a landowner who claims that his property has been “taken” by a land-use regulation may not recover damages for the time before it is finally determined that the regulation constitutes a “taking” of his property. We disagree, and conclude that in these circumstances the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution would require compensation for that period....

Consideration of the compensation question must begin with direct reference to the language of the Fifth Amendment, which provides in relevant part that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.” As its language indicates, and as the Court has frequently noted, this provision does not prohibit the taking of private property, but instead places a condition on the exercise of that power. This basic understanding of the Amendment makes clear that it is designed not to limit the governmental interference with property rights per se, but rather to secure compensation in the event of otherwise proper interference amounting to a taking. Thus, government action that works a taking of property rights necessarily implicates the “constitutional obligation to pay just compensation.”Armstrong v. United States (1960)....

It has also been established doctrine at least since Justice Holmes’ opinion for the Court in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922), that “[t]he general rule at least is, that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.” While the typical taking occurs when the government acts to condemn property in the exercise of its power of eminent domain, the entire doctrine of inverse condemnation is predicated on the proposition that a taking may occur without such formal proceedings....

While the California Supreme Court may not have actually disavowed this general rule in Agins, we believe that it has truncated the rule by disallowing damages that occurred prior to the ultimate invalidation of the challenged regulation. The California Supreme Court justified its conclusion at length in the Agins opinion, concluding that:

“In combination, the need for preserving a degree of freedom in the land-use planning function, and the inhibiting financial force which inheres in the inverse condemnation remedy, persuade us that on balance mandamus or declaratory relief rather than inverse condemnation is the appropriate relief under the circumstances.”

We, of course, are not unmindful of these considerations, but they must be evaluated in the light of the command of the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The Court has recognized in more than one case that the government may elect to abandon its intrusion or discontinue regulations. Similarly, a governmental body may acquiesce in a judicial declaration that one of its ordinances has effected an unconstitutional taking of property; the landowner has no right under the Just Compensation Clause to insist that a “temporary” taking be deemed a permanent taking. But we have not resolved whether abandonment by the government requires payment of compensation for the period of time during which regulations deny a landowner all use of his land.

In considering this question, we find substantial guidance in cases where the government has only temporarily exercised its right to use private property. In United States v. Dow, though rejecting a claim that the Government may not abandon condemnation proceedings, the Court observed that abandonment “results in an alteration in the property interest taken--from [one of] full ownership to one of temporary use and occupation.... In such cases compensation would be measured by the principles normally governing the taking of a right to use property temporarily. Each of the cases cited by the Dow Court involved appropriation of private property by the United States for use during World War II. Though the takings were in fact “temporary,” there was no question that compensation would be required for the Government’s interference with the use of the property; the Court was concerned in each case with determining the proper measure of the monetary relief to which the property holders were entitled.

These cases reflect the fact that “temporary” takings which, as here, deny a landowner all use of his property, are not different in kind from permanent takings, for which the Constitution clearly requires compensation. It is axiomatic that the Fifth Amendment’s just compensation provision is “designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.” Armstrong v. United States. In the present case the interim ordinance was adopted by the County of Los Angeles in January 1979, and became effective immediately. Appellant filed suit within a month after the effective date of the ordinance and yet when the California Supreme Court denied a hearing in the case on October 17, 1985, the merits of appellant’s claim had yet to be determined. The United States has been required to pay compensation for leasehold interests of shorter duration than this. The value of a leasehold interest in property for a period of years may be substantial, and the burden on the property owner in extinguishing such an interest for a period of years may be great indeed. Where this burden results from governmental action that amounted to a taking, the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires that the government pay the landowner for the value of the use of the land during this period. Invalidation of the ordinance or its successor ordinance after this period of time, though converting the taking into a “temporary” one, is not a sufficient remedy to meet the demands of the Just Compensation Clause....

We also point out that the allegation of the complaint which we treat as true for purposes of our decision was that the ordinance in question denied appellant all use of its property. We limit our holding to the facts presented, and of course do not deal with the quite different questions that would arise in the case of normal delays in obtaining building permits, changes in zoning ordinances, variances, and the like which are not before us. We realize that even our present holding will undoubtedly lessen to some extent the freedom and flexibility of land-use planners and governing bodies of municipal corporations when enacting land-use regulations. But such consequences necessarily flow from any decision upholding a claim of constitutional right; many of the provisions of the Constitution are designed to limit the flexibility and freedom of governmental authorities, and the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment is one of them. As Justice Holmes aptly noted more than 50 years ago, “a strong public desire to improve the public condition is not enough to warrant achieving the desire by a shorter cut than the constitutional way of paying for the change.” Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon.

Here we must assume that the Los Angeles County ordinance has denied appellant all use of its property for a considerable period of years, and we hold that invalidation of the ordinance without payment of fair value for the use of the property during this period of time would be a constitutionally insufficient remedy. The judgment of the California Court of Appeal is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.

JUSTICE STEVENS, DISSENTING.

One thing is certain. The Court’s decision today will generate a great deal of litigation. Most of it, I believe, will be unproductive. But the mere duty to defend the actions that today’s decision will spawn will undoubtedly have a significant adverse impact on the land-use regulatory process. The Court has reached out to address an issue not actually presented in this case, and has then answered that self-imposed question in a superficial and, I believe, dangerous way.

Four flaws in the Court’s analysis merit special comment. First, the Court unnecessarily and imprudently assumes that appellant’s complaint alleges an unconstitutional taking of Lutherglen. Second, the Court distorts our precedents in the area of regulatory takings when it concludes that all ordinances which would constitute takings if allowed to remain in effect permanently, necessarily also constitute takings if they are in effect for only a limited period of time. Third, the Court incorrectly assumes that the California Supreme Court has already decided that it will never allow a state court to grant monetary relief for a temporary regulatory taking, and then uses that conclusion to reverse a judgment which is correct under the Court’s own theories. Finally, the Court errs in concluding that it is the Takings Clause, rather than the Due Process Clause, which is the primary constraint on the use of unfair and dilatory procedures in the land-use area....

There is, of course, a possibility that land-use planning, like other forms of regulation, will unfairly deprive a citizen of the right to develop his property at the time and in the manner that will best serve his economic interests. The “regulatory taking” doctrine announced in Pennsylvania Coal places a limit on the permissible scope of land-use restrictions. In my opinion, however, it is the Due Process Clause rather than that doctrine that protects the property owner from improperly motivated, unfairly conducted, or unnecessarily protracted governmental decisionmaking. Violation of the procedural safeguards mandated by the Due Process Clause will give rise to actions for damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983, but I am not persuaded that delays in the development of property that are occasioned by fairly conducted administrative or judicial proceedings are compensable, except perhaps in the most unusual circumstances. On the contrary, I am convinced that the public interest in having important governmental decisions made in an orderly, fully informed way amply justifies the temporary burden on the citizen that is the inevitable by-product of democratic government....

The policy implications of today’s decision are obvious and, I fear, far reaching. Cautious local officials and land-use planners may avoid taking any action that might later be challenged and thus give rise to a damages action. Much important regulation will never be enacted, even perhaps in the health and safety area. Were this result mandated by the Constitution, these serious implications would have to be ignored. But the loose cannon the Court fires today is not only unattached to the Constitution, but it also takes aim at a long line of precedents in the regulatory takings area. It would be the better part of valor simply to decide the case at hand instead of igniting the kind of litigation explosion that this decision will undoubtedly touch off.

I respectfully dissent.