By Lyle Denniston
SCOTUSblog
The Supreme Court, insisting that it was issuing only a “modest decision” that basically said nothing new, nevertheless told lower courts on Tuesday not to be deterred from finding that the government owes compensation for interfering with private property — and especially not to be put off by prophesies of doom for a government’s ability to act. That claim is often made, the court noted, but it should not lead a court to give a government agency a “blanket exemption” from paying when it seizes private property — even if the seizure is only temporary but yet does significant damage.
The unanimous ruling, in the case of Arkansas Game and Fish Commission v. United States (docket 11-597), gave that state agency a chance to defend in a lower court a $5.7 million compensation award it had once received, but then lost. If it can prove its case against a series of challenges still open to the federal government, the award would pay for harms done to the commission’s timber-growing and wildlife management area that underwent years of damaging floods because the U.S. Corps of Engineers opened a dam’s gates repeatedly to release more water than usual to flow downstream. (The decision came on an 8-0 vote, with Justice Elena Kagan recused.)
