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t. at 1486.
691 505 U.S. at 1029 n.16.
692 344 U.S. 149 (1952). In dissent, Justices Black and Douglas advocated the
applicability of a test formulated by Justice Brandeis in Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry.
v. Walters, 294 U.S. 405, 429 (1935), a regulation case, to the effect that ‘‘when particular
individuals are singled out to bear the cost of advancing the public convenience,
that imposition must bear some reasonable relation to the evils to be eradicated
or the advantages to be secured.’’
693 357 U.S. 155 (1958).
plementary power to abate [public] nuisances . . . , or otherwise.’’
687 Thus, while there is no broad ‘‘noxious use’’ exception separating
police power regulations from takings, there is a narrower
‘‘background principles’’ exception based on the law of nuisance and
unspecified ‘‘property law’’ principles.
Together with the investment-backed expectations factor of
Penn Central, background principles were viewed by many lower
courts as supporting a ‘‘notice rule’’ under which a taking claim
was absolutely barred if based on a restriction imposed under a
regulatory regime predating plaintiff’s acquisition of the property.
In Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, 688 the Court forcefully rejected the
absolute version of the notice rule, regardless of rationale. Under
such a rule, it said, ‘‘[a] State would be allowed, in effect, to put
an expiration date on the Takings Clause.’’ 689 Whether any role is
left for preacquisition regulation in the takings analysis, however,
the Court’s majority opinion did not say, leaving the issue to dueling
concurrences from Justice O’Connor (prior regulation remains
a factor) and Justice Scalia (prior regulation is irrelevant). Less
than a year later, Justice O’Connor’s concurrence carried the day
in extended dicta in Tahoe-Sierra, 690 though the decision failed to
elucidate the factors affecting the weighting to be accorded the
pre-existing regime.
The ‘‘or otherwise’’ reference, the Court explained in Lucas, 691
was principally directed to cases holding that in times of great public
peril, such as war, spreading municipal fires, and the like, property
may be taken and destroyed without necessitating compensation.
Thus, in United States v. Caltex, 692 the owners of property destroyed
by retreating United States armies in Manila during World
War II were held not entitled to compensation, and in United
States v. Central Eureka Mining Co., 693 the Court held that a federal
order suspending the operations of a nonessential gold mine
for the duration of the war in order to redistribute the miners, unaccompanied
by governmental possession and use or a forced sale
of the facility, was not a taking entitling the owner to compensa-
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AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS 1485
694 National Bd. of YMCA v. United States, 395 U.S. 85 (1969). ‘‘An undertaking
by the Government to reduce the menace from flood damages which were inevitable
but for the Government’s work does not constitute the Government a taker of all
lands not fully and wholly protected. When undertaking to safeguard a large area
from existing flood hazards, the Government does not owe compensation under the
Fifth Amendment to every landowner which it fails to or cannot protect.’’ United
States v. Sponenbarger, 308 U.S. 256, 265 (1939).
695 Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 260 (1980).
696 483 U.S. 825 (1987).
697 483 U.S. at 837.
698 483 U.S. at 842.
699 Justice Scalia, author of the Court’s opinion in Nollan, amplified his views
in a concurring and dissenting opinion in Pennell v. City of San Jose, 485 U.S. 1
(1988), explaining that ‘‘common zoning regulations requiring subdividers to observe
lot-size and set-back restrictions, and to dedicate certain areas to public streets, are
in accord with [constitutional requirements] because the proposed property use
would otherwise be the cause of’’ the social evil (e.g., congestion) that the regulation
seeks to remedy. By contrast, the Justice asserted, a rent control restriction pegged
to individual tenant hardship lacks such cause-and-effect relationship and is in reality
an attempt to impose on a few individuals public burdens that ‘‘should be
borne by the public as a whole.’’ 485 U.S. at 20, 22.
700 512 U.S. 374 (1994).
tion for loss of profits. Finally, the Court held that when federal
troops occupied several buildings during a riot in order to dislodge
rioters and looters who had already invaded the buildings, the action
was taken as much for the owners’ benefit as for the general
public benefit and the owners must bear the costs of the damage
inflicted on the buildings subsequent to the occupation. 694
The first prong of the Agins test, 695 asking whether land use
controls ‘‘substantially advance legitimate governmental interests,’’
has been applied by the Court only in Nollan v. California Coastal
Commission. 696 There the Court held that extraction of a public access
easement across a strip of beach as a condition for a permit
to enlarge a beachfront home did not ‘‘substantially advance’’ the
state’s legitimate interest in preserving public view of the beach
from the street in front of the lot. The easement instead was designed
to allow the public to walk back and forth along the beach
between two public beaches. ‘‘[U]nless the permit condition serves
the same governmental purpose as the development ban,’’ the
Court concluded, ‘‘the building restriction is not a valid regulation
of land use but ‘an out-and-out plan of extortion.’’’ 697 ‘‘If [the government]
wants an easement across the Nollans’ property, it must
pay for it.’’ 698 Because the Nollan Court found no essential nexus
between the permit condition and the asserted government interest,
it did not address whether there is any additional requirement
when such a nexus does exist. 699 Seven years later, however, the
Court announced in Dolan v. City of Tigard 700 that conditions attached
to development permits must be related to the impact of the
proposed development not only in nature but also in degree. Gov-
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1486 AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS
701 526 U.S. 687 (1999).
702 City of Monterey also appears to give a lax interpretation to the ‘‘substantially
advances a legitimate government interest’’ test of Agins, by endorsing jury
instructions interpreting ‘‘substantially advance’’ to require only a ‘‘reasonable relationship.’’
526 U.S. at 704. Such a reading of City of Monterey, however, puts it
squarely at odds with Nollan, 483 U.S. at 834 n.3, where the Court earlier stressed
that ‘‘substantially advance’’ imposes a stricter standard than the due process one
of rational basis.
703 See, e.g., Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255 (1980) (issue not reached because
property owners challenging development density restrictions had not submitted
a development plan); Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass’n,
452 U.S. 264, 293–97 (1981), and Hodel v. Indiana, 452 U.S. 314, 333–36 (1981) (rejecting
facial taking challenges to federal strip mining law).
704 482 U.S. 304 (1987). The decision was 6–3, Chief Justice Rehnquist’s opinion
of the Court being joined by Justices Brennan, White, Marshall, Powell, and Scalia,
ernment must establish a ‘‘rough proportionality’’ between the burden
imposed by such conditions on the property owner, and the impact
of the property owner’s proposed development on the community—
at least in the context of adjudicated (rather than legislated)
conditions.
Nollan and Dolan occasioned considerable debate over the
breadth of what became known as the ‘‘heightened scrutiny’’ test.
The stakes were plainly high in that the test, where it applies,
lessens the traditional judicial deference to local police power and
places the burden of proof as to rough proportionality on the government.
In City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey,
Ltd., 701 the Court unanimously confined the Dolan rough proportionality
test, and, by implication, the Nollan nexus test, to the
exaction context that gave rise to those cases. For certain, then, is
that City of Monterey bars application of rough proportionality to
outright denials of development. Still unclear, however, is whether
the Court meant to place outside Dolan exactions of a purely monetary
nature, in contrast with the dedication conditions involved in
Nollan and Dolan. 702
Following the Penn Central decision, the Court grappled with
the issue of the appropriate remedy property owners should pursue
in objecting to land use regulations. 703 The remedy question arises
because there are two possible constitutional objections to be made
to regulations that go ‘‘too far’’ in reducing the value of property
or which do not substantially advance a legitimate governmental
interest. The regulation may be invalidated as a denial of due process,
or may be deemed a taking requiring compensation, at least
for the period in which the regulation was in effect. The Court finally
resolved the issue in First English Evangelical Lutheran
Church v. County of Los Angeles, holding that when land use regulation
is held to be a taking, compensation is due for the period of
implementation prior to the holding. 704 The Court recognized that,
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AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS 1487
and Justice Stevens’ dissent being joined in part by Justices Blackmun and
O’Connor. The position the Court adopted had been advocated by Justice Brennan
in a dissenting opinion in San Diego Gas & Elec. Co. v. City of San Diego, 450 U.S.
621, 636 (1981) (dissenting from Court’s holding that state court decision was not
‘‘final judgment’’ under 28 U.S.C. § 1257).
705 482 U.S. at 321.
706 Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498 (1998) (statute imposing generalized
monetary liability); Babbitt v. Youpee, 519 U.S. 234 (1997) (amended statutory
requirement that small fractional interests in allotted Indian lands escheat to tribe,
rather than pass on to heirs); Hodel v. Irving, 481 U.S. 704 (1987) (pre-amendment
version of escheat statute).
707 Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49 (1960). For other incantations
of this fairness principle, see Penn Central, 438 U.S. at 123–24; and Tahoe-Sierra
Pres. Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 122 S. Ct. 1465, 1478, 1484-89
(2002).
708 Webb’s Fabulous Pharmacies v. Beckwith, 449 U.S. 155 (1980) (government
retained the interest derived from funds it required to be deposited with the clerk
of the county court as a precondition to certain suits; the interest earned was not
reasonably related to the costs of using the courts, since a separate statute required
payment for the clerk’s services). By contrast, a charge for governmental services
‘‘not so clearly excessive as to belie [its] purported character as [a] user fee’’ does
not qualify as a taking. United States v. Sperry Corp., 493 U.S. 52, 62 (1989).
709 Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104, 128 (1978). In addition
to the cases cited there, see also Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164,
180 (1979) (viewed as governmental effort to turn private pond into ‘‘public aquatic
even though government may elect in such circumstances to discontinue
regulation and thereby avoid compensation for a permanent
property deprivation, ‘‘no subsequent action by the government
can relieve it of the duty to provide compensation for the period
during which the taking was effective.’’ 705 Outside the landuse
context, however, the Court has now recognized a limited number
of situations where invalidation, rather than compensation, remains
the appropriate takings remedy. 706
The process of describing general criteria to guide resolution of
regulatory taking claims, begun in Penn Central, has reduced to
some extent the ad hoc character of takings law. It is nonetheless
true that not all cases fit neatly into the categories delimited to
date, and that still other cases that might be so categorized are explained
in different terms by the Court. The overriding objective,
the Court frequently reminds us, is to vitalize the Takings Clause’s
protection against government ‘‘forcing some people alone to bear
public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne
by the public as a whole.’’ 707 Thus a taking may be found if the
effect of regulation is enrichment of the government itself rather
than adjustment of the benefits and burdens of economic life in
promotion of the public good. 708 Similarly, the Court looks askance
at governmental efforts to secure public benefits at a landowner’s
expense— ‘‘government actions that may be characterized as acquisitions
of resources to permit or facilitate uniquely public functions.’’
709
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1488 AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS
park’’); Nollan v. California Coastal Comm’n, 483 U.S. 825 (1987) (‘‘extortion’’ of
beachfront easement for public as permit condition unrelated to purpose of permit).
710 Nollan v. California Coastal Comm’n, 483 U.S. 825, 831–32 (1987) (physical
occupation occurs with public easement that eliminates right to exclude others);
Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164 (1979) (imposition of navigation servitude
requiring public access to a privately-owned pond was a taking under the circumstances;
owner’s commercially valuable right to exclude others was taken, and
requirement amounted to ‘‘an actual physical invasion’’). But see PruneYard Shopping
Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 84 (1980) (requiring shopping center to permit
individuals to exercise free expression rights on property onto which public had been
invited was not destructive of right to exclude others or ‘‘so essential to the use or
economic value of [the] property’’ as to constitute a taking).
711 Hodel v. Irving, 481 U.S. 704 (1987) (complete abrogation of the right to pass
on to heirs fractionated interests in lands constitutes a taking), Babbitt v. Youpee,
519 U.S. 234 (1997) (same result based on ‘‘severe’’ restriction of the right).
712 Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 524 U.S. 156 (1998) (interest on
client funds in state Interest on Lawyers Trust Account program is property of client
within meaning of Takings Clause, though funds could not generate net interest
in absence of program).
713 First English, Nollan, Lucas, Dolan, and City of Monterey.
714 Lucas spoke of the total taking situation to which its rule applied as ‘‘extraordinary’’
and ‘‘relatively rare.’’ 505 U.S. at 1017-18. Quite recently,
Tahoe-Sierra reiterated the ‘‘extraordinary’’ reference. 122 S. Ct. at 1483.
On the other side of the coin, the nature as well as the extent
of property interests affected by governmental regulation sometimes
takes on importance. Some strands are more important than
others. The right to exclude others from one’s land is so basic to
ownership that extinguishment of this right ordinarily constitutes
a taking. 710 Similarly valued is the right to pass on property to
one’s heirs. 711 Nor must property have realizable net value to fall
under the Takings Clause. 712
Even though takings were found or assumed in several decisions
since 1987, 713 considerable obstacles remain for future litigants
challenging regulatory restrictions on land use. As suggested
above, regulatory takings will most likely remain difficult to establish
in spite of Nollan. The Lucas fact situation, in which government
regulation renders land entirely without economic use, will
doubtless prove rare, as the Court itself envisioned on more than
one occasion. 714 Buttressing this point is Tahoe-Sierra’s strong implication
that the Lucas per se rule is triggered only by complete
elimination of use and value, something that occurs exceedingly infrequently
in the real world in light of the lingering value even
undevelopable land may have as open space or for speculation.
More broadly, Tahoe-Sierra is suffused with a general distaste for
the use of per se rules in takings analysis, leading observers to
argue that in the ordinary regulatory situation, the ad hoc Penn
Central standard will often be ‘‘the only game in town.’’.
Failure to incur administrative (and judicial) delays can result
in dismissal of an as-applied taking claim based on ripeness doc-
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AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS 1489
715 473 U.S. 172 (1985).
716 477 U.S. 340 (1986).
717 Pennell v. City of San Jose, 485 U.S. 1 (1988).
718 533 U.S. 606 (2001).
719 533 U.S. at 620. See also Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 520
U.S. 725 (1997) (taking claim ripe despite plaintiff’s not having applied for sale of
her transferrable development rights, since no discretion remains to agency and
value of such rights is simple issue of fact).
trine, an area of takings law that the Court has developed extensively
since Penn Central. In the leading decision of Williamson
County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank, 715 the
Court announced the canonical two-part ripeness test for takings
actions brought in federal court. First, for an as-applied challenge,
the property owner must obtain from the regulating agency a
‘‘final, definitive position’’ regarding how it will apply its regulation
to the owner’s land. Second, when suing a state or municipality,
the owner must exhaust any possibilities for obtaining compensation
from the state or its courts before coming to federal court.
Thus, the claim in Williamson County was found unripe because
the plaintiff had failed to seek a variance (first prong of test), and
had not sought compensation from the state courts in question
even though they recognized inverse condemnation claims (second
prong). Similarly, in MacDonald, Sommer & Frates v. County of
Yolo, 716 a final decision was found lacking where the landowner
had been denied approval for one subdivision plan calling for intense
development, but that denial had not foreclosed the possibility
that a scaled-down (though still economic) version would be
approved. In a somewhat different context, a taking challenge to a
municipal rent control ordinance was considered ‘‘premature’’ in
the absence of evidence that a tenant hardship provision had ever
been applied to reduce what would otherwise be considered a reasonable
rent increase. 717 Beginning with Lucas in 1992, however,
the Court’s ripeness determinations have displayed an impatience
with formalistic reliance on the ‘‘final decision’’ rule, while nonetheless
explicitly reaffirming it. In Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, 718 for
example, the Court saw no point in requiring the landowner to
apply for approval of a scaled-down development of his wetland,
since the regulations at issue made plain that no development at
all would be permitted there. ‘‘[O]nce it becomes clear that the
agency lacks the discretion to permit any development, or the permissible
uses of the property are known to a reasonable degree of
certainty, a takings claim is likely to have ripened.’’ 719
Facial challenges dispense with the Williamson County final
decision prerequisite, though at great risk to the plaintiff in that
without pursuing administrative remedies, a claimant often lacks
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1490 AMENDMENT 5—RIGHTS OF PERSONS
720 See, e.g., Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass’n, 452 U.S.
264, 295–97 (1981) (facial challenge to surface mining law rejected); United States
v. Riverside Bayview Homes, 474 U.S. 121, 127 (1985) (mere permit requirement
does not itself take property); Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass’n v. DeBenedictis, 480
U.S. 470, 493–502 (1987) (facial challenge to anti-subsidence mining law rejected).
evidence that a statute has the requisite economic impact on his
or her property. 720
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1545
SEVENTH AMENDMENT
CIVIL TRIALS
CONTENTS
Page
Trial by Jury in Civil Cases ...................................................................................................... 1547
The Right and the Characteristics of the Civil Jury ....................................................... 1547
History .......................................................................................................................... 1547
Composition and Functions of Civil Jury .................................................................. 1548
Courts in Which the Guarantee Applies ................................................................... 1549
Waiver of the Right ..................................................................................................... 1550
Application of the Amendment .......................................................................................... 1550
Cases ‘‘at Common Law’’ ............................................................................................. 1550
The Continuing Law-Equity Distinction ................................................................... 1554
Procedures Limiting Jury’s Role ................................................................................ 1557
Directed Verdicts ......................................................................................................... 1558
Jury Trial Under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act ........................................... 1559
Appeals from State Courts to the Supreme Court ........................................................... 1560
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1547
1 2 M. FARRAND, RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, at 587 (rev.
ed. 1937).
2 Id. at 628.
3 J. STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1757
(1833). ‘‘[I]t is a most important and valuable amendment; and places upon the high
ground of constitutional right the inestimable privilege of a trial by jury in civil
cases, a privilege scarcely inferior to that in criminal cases, which is conceded by
all to be essential to political and civil liberty.’’ Id. at 1762.
4 J. ELLIOTT, THE DEBATES IN THE SEVERAL STATE CONVENTIONS ON THE ADOPTION
OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 326 (2d ed. 1836) (New Hampshire); 2 id. at
399–414 (New York); 3 id. at 658 (Virginia).
5 1 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 436 (1789). ‘‘In suits at common law, between man
and man, the trial by jury, as one of the best securities to the rights of the people,
ought to remain inviolate.’’
CIVIL TRIALS
SEVENTH AMENDMENT
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy
shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be
preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined
in any Court of the United States, than according to
the rules of the common law.
TRIAL BY JURY IN CIVIL CASES
The Right and the Characteristics of the Civil Jury
History.—On September 12, 1787, as the Convention was in
its final stages, Mr. Williamson of North Carolina ‘‘observed to the
House that no provision was yet made for juries in Civil cases and
suggested the necessity of it.’’ The comment elicited some support
and the further observation that because of the diversity of practice
in civil trials in the States it would be impossible to draft a suitable
provision. 1 When on September 15 it was moved that a clause
be inserted in Article III, § 2, to guarantee that ‘‘a trial by jury
shall be preserved as usual in civil cases,’’ this objection seems to
have been the only one urged in opposition and the motion was defeated.
2 The omission, however, was cited by many opponents of
ratification and ‘‘was pressed with an urgency and zeal . . . wellnigh
preventing its ratification.’’ 3 A guarantee of right to jury in
civil cases was one of the amendments urged on Congress by the
ratifying conventions 4 and it was included from the first among
Madison’s proposals to the House. 5 It does not appear that the text
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1548 AMENDMENT 7—CIVIL TRIALS
6 It is simply noted in 1 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 760 (1789), that on August 18
the House ‘‘considered and adopted’’ the committee version: ‘‘In suits at common
law, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.’’ On September 7, the SENATE
JOURNAL states that this provision was adopted after insertion of ‘‘where the consideration
exceeds twenty dollars.’’ 2 B. SCHWARTZ, THE BILL OF RIGHTS: A DOCUMENTARY
HISTORY 1150 (1971).
7 Baltimore & Carolina Line v. Redman, 295 U.S. 654, 657 (1913); Parsons v.
Bedford, 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 433, 446–48 (1830).
8 Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U.S. 1, 13 (1899).
9 Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581 (1900); American Publishing Co. v. Fisher, 166
U.S. 464 (1897); Springville v. Thomas, 166 U.S. 707 (1897).
10 413 U.S. 149 (1973). Justices Marshall and Stewart dissented on constitutional
and statutory grounds, id. at 166, while Justices Douglas and Powell relied
only on statutory grounds without reaching the constitutional issue. Id. at 165, 188.
11 Id. at 155–56. The Court did not consider what number less than six, if any,
would fail to satisfy the Amendment’s requirements. ‘‘What is required for a ‘jury’
is a number large enough to facilitate group deliberation combined with a likelihood
of obtaining a representative cross section of the community. . . . It is undoubtedly
true that at some point the number becomes too small to accomplish these goals .
. .’’ Id. at 160 n.16. Application of similar reasoning has led the Court to uphold
elimination of the unanimity as well as the 12-person requirement for criminal
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