Here's the cert petition in a case we've been following.
This is the one where a North Carolina county went bonkers in the early days of Co-19, and truly "locked down" by banning nonresident property owners from entering the county. This wasn't done all at once, but in phases, with nonresident property owners being informed that if they didn't get to their Dare County homes by March 20, they were going to be prohibited from even entering the county. As the Fourth Circuit put it, "In effect, Dare County told non-resident property owners:'“If you want to quarantine at your beach house, get there by March 20.' This gave non-resident property owners four days to travel to the county."
Blackburn was stopped from accessing his property for 45 days.
The Fourth Circuit upheld the district court's rejection of his takings claim, concluding that this was not a physical invasion or occupation ("But temporarily excluding an owner from their own property differs from eliminating the owner’s right to exclude."), nor was it a total or near-total deprivation of the property's beneficial uses.
The owner has now sought Supreme Court review.
Here's the Question Presented:
Whether a governmental regulation prohibiting all physical access to a landowner’s property is a “per se” taking under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Stay tuned. Follow along here, or on the Court's docket.
Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, Blackburn v. Dare County, No. 22-1048 (U.S. Apr. 25, 2023)