This just in. The Federal Circuit has issued an opinion in Casitas Municipal Water District v. United States, No. 2012-5033 (Feb. 27, 2013), a case we've been following for a while.
The court affirmed the CFC's dismissal of the case on ripeness grounds:
Casitas Municipal Water District ("Casitas") operates the Ventura River Project (the “Project”). The Project, which is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (“BOR”), provides water to residential, industrial, and agricultural customers in Ventura County, California. Ventura County is located on the southern coast of California, approximately sixty miles northwest of Los Angeles.On January 26, 2005, Casitas brought suit in the United States Court of Federal Claims, alleging that, by imposing certain operating criteria on the Project, the United States had taken its property without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. On December 5, 2011, the Court of Federal Claims dismissed Casitas’s complaint without prejudice, on the ground that Casitas’s takings claim was not ripe. In dismissing the complaint, the court held that Casitas’s claim was not ripe because Casitas had failed to demonstrate that the operating criteria had as yet caused it to deliver less water to its customers than it otherwise would have delivered. Casitas Mun. Water Dist. v. United States, 102 Fed. Cl. 443 (2011) ("Casitas V"). Casitas now appeals the dismissal of its complaint. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
Slip op. at 2-3 (emphasis original).
Casitas Municipal Water District v. United States, No. 2012-5033 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 27, 2013)
