Certain cases need not start in state court
Property owners now have the right to decide if certain land disputes with local governments can be heard in state or federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that property owners can skip local and state courts and sue directly in federal court for alleged private property rights violations. The decision is of interest to property and casualty carriers, given potential title implications.
In the case of Rose Mary Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, Knick had argued her local township was infringing on her property rights by requiring her to open a section of her property that contains grave markers. The township had passed an ordinance requiring that any land with a cemetery must be open to the public during daylight hours. Although there are grave markers on her property, Knick argued there was no family cemetery on her 90-acre property.
Knick sued in federal court over the ordinance, claiming it violated the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits private property be taken for a public use without just compensation. The federal court ruled she had to file suit first in state court. While local governments routinely have had the ability to move such cases on their own from state to federal court, property owners didn’t have the same option – until now. The case attracted friend-of-the-court briefs from various agricultural, planning, and home building associations, as well as several western states.
In ruling in Knick’s favor, the Court overruled a 1985 Supreme Court decision that had prevented cases like this one from being filed directly in federal court. Chief Justice John Roberts, in the majority 5-4 opinion that followed the Court’s ideological lines, wrote that the 1985 ruling was “not just wrong…but exceptionally ill founded.” Knick will now be able to pursue her original case in federal court.
LMA Newsletter of 7-1-19
