Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1987

First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles

482 U.S. 304 | 107 S. Ct. 2378 | 96 L. Ed. 2d 250 | 1987 U.S. LEXIS 2606 | 55 U.S.L.W. 4781

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Takeaway

In short, this case established that if a land-use regulation is found to have temporarily taken all use of property, later invalidating or withdrawing the regulation does not erase the government’s duty to compensate the owner for the period of the taking.

Background

First English Evangelical Lutheran Church owned Lutherglen, a 21-acre church campground in Mill Creek Canyon. After a 1977 forest fire stripped vegetation from upstream hills, severe flooding in 1978 destroyed the camp’s buildings. Los Angeles County responded by adopting an interim emergency ordinance in January 1979 that barred construction, reconstruction, placement, or enlargement of structures within a designated flood-protection area that included Lutherglen.

The Church sued the County and the Flood Control District, alleging, among other claims, that the ordinance denied it all use of Lutherglen and seeking damages for lost use. Under the California Supreme Court’s decision in Agins v. Tiburon, however, a landowner challenging a regulatory taking generally had to seek declaratory or mandamus relief invalidating the regulation, rather than inverse-condemnation damages. The trial court struck the Church’s regulatory-taking allegations, and the California Court of Appeal affirmed on the ground that damages were unavailable unless the government continued enforcing a regulation after it had been judicially declared invalid. The California Supreme Court denied review.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the Court had appellate jurisdiction to review the California Court of Appeal’s ruling despite unresolved claims concerning the Flood Control District and questions about how the federal issue was raised.

Holding

Yes. The Court had jurisdiction because the state court had finally resolved a distinct federal compensation issue that would survive regardless of the outcome of the remaining state-law proceedings.

Reasoning

The unresolved cloud-seeding claim against the Flood Control District did not prevent review. The California Court of Appeal had conclusively rejected the Church’s separate claim that it was constitutionally entitled to compensation from the County for a regulatory taking, and that federal issue would remain decisive no matter how the other claims were resolved.

Although the Church’s complaint invoked state constitutional law, it argued in the Court of Appeal that federal takings decisions showed the constitutional error in California’s Agins rule. By applying Agins and rejecting that argument, the state court actually decided the federal question. The Court therefore treated the claim as adequately raised and passed upon below.

Issue #2

Whether the Church’s claim for compensation was ripe even though no court had yet determined that the flood-protection ordinance actually took its property.

Holding

Yes. The California courts assumed the complaint alleged a taking and rejected the claim solely because California law denied damages for a temporary regulatory taking.

Reasoning

In earlier regulatory-takings cases, the Court had declined to reach the remedy question because it was unclear whether a taking had occurred or because further administrative action might still permit productive use of the land. Here, by contrast, the California Court of Appeal treated the complaint as alleging that the ordinance took all use of Lutherglen and held that damages were unavailable even on that assumption.

The Church had also pursued the state procedure for obtaining compensation, but the state courts held that inverse condemnation was not an available remedy for this kind of claim. That ruling made the federal compensation question ripe for review.

Issue #3

Whether the interim flood-protection ordinance in fact effected a taking of the Church’s property.

Holding

The Court did not decide that question. It assumed, for purposes of resolving the remedy issue, that the ordinance denied the Church all use of Lutherglen and left the merits for the California courts on remand.

Reasoning

The state courts did not reject the Church’s allegation as factually insufficient or decide that the ordinance was a valid safety regulation that could never amount to a taking. They instead held the allegation irrelevant because damages were unavailable under Agins.

Accordingly, the Court did not determine whether the ordinance actually eliminated all economically beneficial use, whether the County could justify the restriction as an exercise of its power to protect public safety, or what effect a later permanent ordinance might have. Those issues remained open on remand.

Issue #4

Whether the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments require compensation for the period during which a land-use regulation deprives an owner of all use of property before the regulation is invalidated or withdrawn.

Holding

Yes. When government action has worked a taking by denying all use of property, the Just Compensation Clause requires payment for the period of deprivation, even if the regulation is later invalidated or abandoned.

Reasoning

The Takings Clause does not prohibit government from taking private property for public use; it conditions that power on payment of just compensation. Because the constitutional duty to compensate is self-executing, an owner may bring an inverse-condemnation action when government action, even without formal eminent-domain proceedings, takes property rights.

The Court relied on the established principle that regulation can become a taking when it goes too far. California’s rule improperly truncated that principle by treating invalidation of an excessive regulation as a complete remedy, while refusing to compensate the owner for losses suffered before invalidation.

The Court’s cases involving temporary physical occupations confirmed that a temporary taking is still a taking. When the government temporarily occupies or appropriates the use of property, it must pay for the value of that use; returning the property later does not erase the earlier constitutional obligation.

The same fairness principle applies when a regulation is assumed to deny all use of land for years. The owner loses the value of a valuable use interest during that period, and the public cannot require one owner alone to bear that burden without compensation. Later invalidation converts the taking from permanent to temporary, but it does not eliminate the duty to pay for the time the taking was effective.

The ruling did not force the County to exercise eminent domain or retain the ordinance. Once a court finds a taking, the government may amend or repeal the regulation or elect to condemn the property. But no later choice can relieve it of the obligation to compensate for a period in which its regulation already worked a taking.

The Court confined its holding to the assumed denial of all use alleged here. It did not decide whether ordinary delays in permits, zoning changes, variances, or similar land-use processes constitute compensable takings.

Dissents

Justice Stevens

Reasoning

Justice Stevens argued that the Court should not have reached the novel compensation question. The Church’s complaint did not seek to invalidate the ordinance and contained little factual detail showing how the emergency flood-safety restriction interfered with any concrete intended use. In his view, the Court could and should have rejected the federal taking claim on its merits rather than assume a taking merely to decide a remedy question.

He further maintained that a temporary health-and-safety regulation adopted after a destructive flood ordinarily cannot be treated as a taking simply because a permanent version of the same restriction might be excessive. Property is held subject to the government’s authority to prevent dangerous or noxious uses, and the County’s temporary restriction on rebuilding in a flood-prone area was presumptively valid.

Stevens emphasized that regulatory takings differ from physical occupations. A physical occupation is ordinarily a taking regardless of duration, but a regulatory taking depends on the regulation’s economic impact, the property interests affected, and interference with reasonable investment-backed expectations. Duration is therefore an essential part of the analysis: a regulation that would be a taking if permanent does not automatically become a taking during a shorter period.

In his view, the California courts had not clearly held that damages could never be available for a temporary regulatory taking. They had only enforced a procedural rule requiring an owner first to seek declaratory or mandamus relief invalidating an excessive regulation. The Church should have exhausted that route before seeking damages or federal review.

Finally, Stevens argued that the Due Process Clause, rather than the Takings Clause, is the proper constitutional safeguard against unfair, arbitrary, or dilatory land-use procedures. Treating ordinary regulatory disputes and delays as compensable takings, he warned, would prompt extensive litigation and discourage local governments from adopting even needed health-and-safety regulations.