Kelo v. City of New London

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Notable Items:

Issue(s) Before the Court:

Petitioner's Claim(s):

Respondent's Claim(s):

Holding(s) and Disposition:

Material Facts:

• The city council also authorized the NLDC to purchase property or to acquire property by exercising eminent domain in the City’s name.
• ... negotiations with petitioners failed.
• As a consequence, in November 2000, the NLDC initiated the condemnation proceedings that gave rise to this case.
• A full recounting of the facts is available below
• In December 2000, petitioners brought this action in the New London Superior Court.

Procedural History:

• In December 2000, petitioners brought this action in the New London Superior Court.
• ... the Superior Court granted a permanent restraining order prohibiting the taking of the properties located in parcel 4A (park or marina support).
• [Superior Court], however, denied petitioners relief as to the properties located in parcel 3 (office space).
• After the Superior Court ruled, both sides took appeals to the Supreme Court of Connecticut. That court held, over a dissent, that all of the City’s proposed takings were valid.
• ...the State’s municipal development statute...expresses a legislative determination that the taking of land, even developed land, as part of an economic development project is a “public use” and in the “public interest.”
• the court held that such economic development qualified as a valid public use under both the Federal and State Constitutions.
• The three dissenting justices...would have found all the takings unconstitutional because the City had failed to adduce “clear and convincing evidence” that the economic benefits of the plan would in fact come to pass. [How? what would be clear and convincing evidence of a future event?]
• We granted certiorari to determine whether a city’s decision to take property for the purpose of economic development satisfies the “public use” requirement of the Fifth Amendment.

Rationale

Majority Opinion (Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer)

• Because that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose, the takings challenged here satisfy the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment.
• Petitioners contend that using eminent domain for economic development impermissibly blurs the boundary between public and private takings.
• We cannot say that public ownership is the sole method of promoting the public purposes of community redevelopment projects.
• This Court’s authority, however, extends only to determining whether the City’s proposed condemnations are for a “public use” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
• Because over a century of our case law interpreting that provision dictates an affirmative answer to that question, we may not grant petitioners the relief that they seek.
• A full description of the rationale is available below

O'Connor dissent (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas)

• The case before us now demonstrates why, when deciding if a taking’s purpose is constitutional, the police power and “public use” cannot always be equated.
• three categories of takings that comply with the public use:
  • First, the sovereign may transfer private property to public ownership—such as for a road, a hospital, or a military base. See, e.g., Old Dominion Land Co. v. United States, 269 U. S. 55 (1925)
  • Second, the sovereign may transfer private property to private parties, often common carriers, who make the property available for the public’s use—such as with a railroad, a public utility, or a stadium. See, e.g., National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Boston & Maine Corp., 503 U. S. 407 (1992); Mt. Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Co. v. Alabama Interstate Power Co., 240 U. S. 30 (1916)
  • takings that serve a public purpose also satisfy the Constitution even if the property is destined for subsequent private use. See, e.g., Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26 (1954); Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229 (1984).
• ...the extraordinary, precondemnation use of the targeted property inflicted affirmative harm on society—in Berman through blight resulting from extreme poverty [(64.3% of its dwellings were beyond repair) (Mr. Berman’s department store was not itself blighted.)] and in Midkiff through oligopoly resulting from extreme wealth.
• Because each taking directly achieved a public benefit, it did not matter that the property was turned over to private use.
• A full description of the rationale is available below

Thomas dissent (no one)

Full Recounting of Facts

• Decades of economic decline led a state agency in 1990 to designate the City a “distressed municipality.”
• In 1996, the Federal Government closed the Naval Undersea Warfare Center
• ... had been located in the Fort Trumbull area of the City and had employed over 1,500 people.
• In 1998, the City’s unemployment rate was nearly double that of the State
• ... its population of just under 24,000 residents was at its lowest since 1920.
• New London Development Corporation (NLDC), a private nonprofit entity established some years earlier to assist the City in planning economic development, was reactivated.
• In January 1998, the State authorized a $5.35 million bond issue to support the NLDC’s planning activities and a $10 million bond issue toward the creation of a Fort Trumbull State Park.
• Pfizer Inc. announced that it would build a $300 million research facility on a site immediately adjacent to Fort Trumbull
• Upon obtaining state-level approval, the NLDC finalized an integrated development plan focused on 90 acres of the Fort Trumbull area.
• The NLDC intended the development plan to capitalize on the arrival of the Pfizer facility and the new commerce it was expected to attract.
• The city council approved the plan in January 2000, and designated the NLDC as its development agent in charge of implementation.
• ... projected to create in excess of 1,000 jobs, to increase tax and other revenues, and to revitalize an economically distressed city, including its downtown and waterfront areas.
• The city council also authorized the NLDC to purchase property or to acquire property by exercising eminent domain in the City’s name.
• the city’s development agent has purchased property from willing sellers
• ... and proposes to use the power of eminent domain to acquire the remainder of the property from unwilling owners in exchange for just compensation.
• ... negotiations with petitioners failed.
• As a consequence, in November 2000, the NLDC initiated the condemnation proceedings that gave rise to this case.
• In December 2000, petitioners brought this action in the New London Superior Court.
• A list of the material facts is available above

Majority Full Argument

• [Section I Recounting of Facts]
• [Section II Plaintiffs and Procedural History]
• [Section III]
• On the one hand, it has long been accepted that the sovereign may not take the property of A for the sole purpose of transferring it to another private party B, even though A is paid just compensation.
• On the other hand, it is equally clear that a State may transfer property from one private party to another if future “use by the public” is the purpose of the taking; the condemnation of land for a railroad with common-carrier duties is a familiar example.
• Neither of these propositions, however, determines the disposition of this case.
• ... the City’s development plan was not adopted “to benefit a particular class of identifiable individuals.”
• On the other hand, this is not a case in which the City is planning to open the condemned land—at least not in its entirety—to use by the general public.
• Nor will the private lessees of the land in any sense be required to operate like common carriers, making their services available to all comers.
• ... this “Court long ago rejected any literal requirement that condemned property be put into use for the general public.” Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (1984)
• Indeed, while many state courts in the mid-19th century endorsed “use by the public” as the proper definition of public use, that narrow view steadily eroded over time. [contra originalism]
• ... this Court began applying the Fifth Amendment to the States at the close of the 19th century, it embraced the broader and more natural interpretation of public use as “public purpose.”
• The disposition of this case therefore turns on the question whether the City’s development plan serves a “public purpose.”
• Our opinion also rejected the contention that the mere fact that the State immediately transferred the properties to private individuals upon condemnation somehow diminished the public character of the taking.
• “[I]t is only the taking’s purpose, and not its mechanics,” we explained, that matters in determining public use.
• For more than a century, our public use jurisprudence has wisely eschewed rigid formulas and intrusive scrutiny in favor of affording legislatures broad latitude in determining what public needs justify the use of the takings power.
• [Section IV]
• ... their determination that the area was sufficiently distressed to justify a program of economic rejuvenation is entitled to our deference.
• ... the City has invoked a state statute that specifically authorizes the use of eminent domain to promote economic development.
• Because that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose, the takings challenged here satisfy the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment.
• ... petitioners urge us to adopt a new bright-line rule that economic development does not qualify as a public use.
• Petitioners contend that using eminent domain for economic development impermissibly blurs the boundary between public and private takings.
• The public end may be as well or better served through an agency of private enterprise than through a department of government—or so the Congress might conclude.
• We cannot say that public ownership is the sole method of promoting the public purposes of community redevelopment projects.
• When the legislature’s purpose is legitimate and its means are not irrational, our cases make clear that empirical debates over the wisdom of takings—no less than debates over the wisdom of other kinds of socioeconomic legislation—are not to be carried out in the federal courts.
• “It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area. Once the question of the public purpose has been decided, the amount and character of land to be taken for the project and the need for a particular tract to complete the integrated plan rests in the discretion of the legislative branch.”
• ... nothing in our opinion precludes any State from placing further restrictions on its exercise of the takings power.
• ... the necessity and wisdom of using eminent domain to promote economic development are certainly matters of legitimate public debate.
• This Court’s authority, however, extends only to determining whether the City’s proposed condemnations are for a “public use” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
• Because over a century of our case law interpreting that provision dictates an affirmative answer to that question, we may not grant petitioners the relief that they seek.
• The judgment of the Supreme Court of Connecticut is affirmed.
• The core of the rationale is available above

O'Connor dissent (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas)

• ... all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded—...use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public....
• ...to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property....
• ... we begin with the unremarkable presumption that every word in the document has independent meaning, “that no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added.” Wright v. United States, 302 U. S. 583, 588 (1938).
• ... eminent domain: “the taking must be for a ‘public use’ and ‘just compensation’ must be paid to the owner.” Brown v. Legal Foundation of Wash., 538 U. S. 216, 231–232 (2003).
• Government may compel an individual to forfeit her property for the public’s use, but not for the benefit of another private person. Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U. S. 302, 336 (2002)
• (“It is well established that … the question [of] what is a public use is a judicial one”). See Cincinnati v. Vester, 281 U. S. 439, 446 (1930)
• three categories of takings that comply with the public use:
  • First, the sovereign may transfer private property to public ownership—such as for a road, a hospital, or a military base. See, e.g., Old Dominion Land Co. v. United States, 269 U. S. 55 (1925)
  • Second, the sovereign may transfer private property to private parties, often common carriers, who make the property available for the public’s use—such as with a railroad, a public utility, or a stadium. See, e.g., National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Boston & Maine Corp., 503 U. S. 407 (1992); Mt. Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Co. v. Alabama Interstate Power Co., 240 U. S. 30 (1916)
  • takings that serve a public purpose also satisfy the Constitution even if the property is destined for subsequent private use. See, e.g., Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26 (1954); Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229 (1984).
• In Berman, we upheld takings within a blighted neighborhood of Washington, D. C. The neighborhood had so deteriorated that...[it] had become “injurious to the public health, safety, morals, and welfare”....
• ...we did not second-guess its decision to treat the neighborhood as a whole rather than lot-by-lot.
• The Hawaii Legislature had concluded that the oligopoly in land ownership was “skewing the State’s residential fee simple market, inflating land prices, and injuring the public tranquility and welfare,” and therefore enacted a condemnation scheme for redistributing title.
• Yet for all the emphasis on deference, Berman and Midkiff hewed to a bedrock principle without which our public use jurisprudence would collapse: “A purely private taking could not withstand the scrutiny of the public use requirement; it would serve no legitimate purpose of government and would thus be void.”
• ...the extraordinary, precondemnation use of the targeted property inflicted affirmative harm on society—in Berman through blight resulting from extreme poverty and in Midkiff through oligopoly resulting from extreme wealth.
• Because each taking directly achieved a public benefit, it did not matter that the property was turned over to private use.
• In moving away from our decisions sanctioning the condemnation of harmful property use, the Court today significantly expands the meaning of public use.
• The Court...suggests two limitations on what can be taken after today’s decision. First, it maintains a role for courts in ferreting out takings whose sole purpose is to bestow a benefit on the private transferee.... A second proposed limitation is implicit....may only be used to upgrade—not downgrade—property.
• If legislative prognostications about the secondary public benefits of a new use can legitimate a taking, there is nothing in the Court’s rule or in Justice Kennedy’s gloss on that rule to prohibit property transfers generated with less care, that are less comprehensive, that happen to result from less elaborate process, whose only projected advantage is the incidence of higher taxes, or that hope to transform an already prosperous city into an even more prosperous one.
• A full description of the rationale is available below