Just in: the Federal Circuit today issued an opinion in Arkansas Game & Fish Comm’n v. United States, No. 2009-5121 (Dec. 3, 2013), concluding that the government must pay just compensation for a taking, because it caused the Commission’s land to be flooded.
This is the case that was up before the U.S. Supreme Court last year (and in which we filed an amicus brief). The unanimous Court held that government-induced flooding could be a taking (rejecting the Federal Circuit’s per se rule that temporary flooding was never a taking, only a tort). The Supreme Court remanded the case to the Federal Circuit, and in today’s opinion, that court affirmed the Court of Federal Claims’ conclusion that the flooding was a temporary taking.
We’ll have more after a chance to review the opinion in depth.
Arkansas Game & Fish Comm’n v. United States, No. 2009-5121 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 3, 2013)