We’re going to end 2018 with the latest in what we think was the most important issue of the past year (and which, we predict, will be the most important case in takings law for at least a decade when it likely gets decided in 2019), Knick v. Township of Scott, No. 17-647.

That case, as you well know, asks whether a property owner who alleges that a local government action has taken property but hasn’t paid the required just compensation is entitled to bring a lawsuit seeking just compensation under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments in a federal court.

Thirty years ago, in Williamson County, the Supreme Court said no. Or at least not until the owner has first pursued compensation via a state’s available procedures to recover compensation, assuming such procedures exist. Add to the mix the rules of preclusion and full faith and credit — which say that adjudication of questions of takings and compensation during the state’s process prohibit a federal court from subsequently revisiting related federal issues — and you have a recipe for property owners never being able to pursue relief for a violation of the U.S. Constitution in a federal court. We’ve been down this path and criticized this strange brew an untold number of times here, including our filing an amicus brief in Knick.  

There were other contenders for the most important takings issue of 2018, such as the myriad pipeline cases (and their myriad unresolved issues), the border wall/fence, and inverse liability for wildfires and floods, but we think that because Knick involves so much more than the question of whether Williamson County‘s “state procedures” requirement should be overruled or modified, that it wins out. We’ll detail why in our first 2019 post.

But for now, we shall leave you, and 2018, with the final two briefs in the Knick case, ordered to be filed by the Court when it scheduled the case for reargument in January 2019 (yes, we shall be present, and will bring you a report). 

Ms. Knick filed her final supplemental brief earlier. See you next year. 

SG’s Supplemental Reply Brief, Knick v. Township of Scott, No. 17-647 (Dec. 21, 2018)

Township of Scott Supplemental Reply Brief, Knick v. Township of Scott, No. 17-647 (Dec. 21, 2018)