Here's the latest in a case we've been following, and that could be hugely important. This is a case about federal court jurisdiction and takings claims against the federal government.
We reported on the of Brott v. United States when it commenced: it's a rails-to-trails takings case, so it would be understandable if you thought this was going to be another one of those dry posts about Court of Federal Claims and Federal Circuit jurisdiction. But it isn't.
Because, you see, our colleague Thor Hearne and his team brought the case in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, where the property is located. But wait, you say, they can't do that, because they are seeking more than $10,000 in just compensation, and that means the CFC, an Article I court, has exclusive jurisdiction over the complaint.
Or does it? Not according to this brief, filed yesterday by the plaintiffs in the Sixth Circuit. The District Court, predictably, dismissed the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that it must have been brought in the CFC, where you bring Tucker Act claims against the United States for amounts over $10,000.
But the brief sees it a different way, arguing that the landowners -- plaintiffs with a self-executing claim that arises under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause -- are entitled to have an Article III judge, and more importantly a jury determine their case. As the brief notes, Chief Justice Roberts recently waxed poetic at oral arguments about the protections which Article III of the Constitution provides via life-tenured judges whose job it is to say what the law is: "“the constitutional birthright of Article III courts." See Executive Benefits Ins. Agency v. Arkinson, 134 S. Ct. 2165 (2014). Congress can't relegate my claim to an Article I judge, who, although they wear robes and we call them "Your Honor," are not the life-tenured Article III judges, and are really creatures of the legislative branch. And you cannot get a jury in the CFC. Thus, the Little Tucker Act cannot be read to deprive the District Courts of jurisdiction to hear cases "arising under" the Constitution (as the Brott case surely does). But if it does, then the Act is unconstitutional.
This is a fascinating issue, and a compelling brief in our opinion. Hitting up Magna Carta, discussing sovereign immunity as "juridical garlic" (Br. at 29), and detailing how and why property owners are entitled to a jury in federal takings case, the brief makes a point we've often harped upon here: the right to just compensation is self-executing, and does not need the government to have adopted a waiver of sovereign immunity in order to have life.
As we wrote earlier, "we don't need no stinkin' Tucker Act."
So please take a read of this brief. We'll post the government's answering brief, of course, when it gets filed.
Brief of Plaintiffs-Appellants, Brott v. United States, No. 16-1466 (6th Cir. June 27, 2016)