New Life for Takings Claims
By far, the most important recent development in land use law is
the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2019 decision in Knick v.
Township of Scott, in which the Court held, essentially, that
if government imposes a regulation that renders land totally or
nearly economically undevelopable, the property owner can proceed
directly in federal court for a violation of the Takings Clause.
The Knick decision erased a 1985 ruling that property
owners must first go to state court with their taking claims, and
lose, before their federal taking claim was "ripe for
adjudication." The unintended consequence of the 1985 ruling
was that after owners went to state court and lost, the federal
courts turned away their federal claim, holding that the property
owners had "had their day in court." Put another way, the
Knick decision restores the Takings Clause as a federal civil
right, on par with the rest of the Bill of Rights. Equally
important, this change allows
