Supreme Court Says Government May Have to Pay for Flooding
Supreme Court Says Government May Have to Pay for Flooding
Property owners may seek compensation if the government is responsible for flooding their lands, even if the condition is not permanent, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday.
The court ruled in favor of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, which complained that the federal government’s annual release of water from a dam 115 miles upstream periodically flooded 23,000 acres of its property from 1993 to 2000.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that, because the flooding receded each year and was not permanent, the commission could not seek compensation under the U.S. Constitution’s Takings Clause. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the government’s taking of private property “without just compensation.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for her fellow justices that the appeals court had misinterpreted Supreme Court precedent when it said that compensation may be sought in instances of flooding only when it is a “permanent or inevitably recurring condition, rather than an inherently