Here’s the cert petition (filed yesterday) which asks whether a takings challenge to rent control which is justiciable under Article III (plaintiff has suffered a concrete injury that is fairly traceable to the challenged restrictions, and a ruling will redress that injury) may nonetheless be dismissed because the court believes that if the owner would only continue to chase the government via its own administrative procedures, she might get relief (thus relieving the courts of the burden of making a ruling). That’s right, the “prudential ripeness” question that has divided the lower courts.

Disclosure: this one is from our shop (Jon Houghton and Deb La Fetra), so we won’t be commenting much.

Here are the Questions Presented:

There is a substantial split of authority about whether final decision ripeness is jurisdictional or prudential for Fifth Amendment regulatory takings claims. On the jurisdictional side are this Court’s decisions in Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank and Horne v. Department of Agriculture, plus the Third and Eighth Circuits. On the prudential side are this Court’s decisions in Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Council and Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and the Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits. The Federal and Second Circuits have intra-circuit splits and in the remaining Circuits, it is an open question. As a result, there is substantial uncertainty about what a property owner must plead for its constitutional claim to be heard on the merits.

Here, Petitioner’s regulatory takings claim was dismissed at the pleadings stage on prudential ripeness grounds, despite plausibly alleging a concrete injury and an established government position.

The questions presented are:

1. When a property owner has sufficiently pled jurisdictional standing for a Fifth Amendment regulatory takings claim, may the court nonetheless dismiss the case on prudential ripeness grounds?

2. Whether a regulatory takings claim under the Fifth Amendment can be dismissed as prudentially unripe when a plaintiff is ineligible for administrative relief or such relief is facially incapable of altering the economic impact of the regulation?

Check it out and stay tuned.

Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Tedford’s Tenancy, LLC v. City of New York, No. ___ (U.S. June 20, 2026)