Property: Supreme Court cases

The cards

1. Shelley v. Kraemer334 U.S. 1 (1948)PropertyPrivate agreements to exclude persons of designated race or color from the use or occupancy of real estate for residential purposes do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment; but it is violative of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for state courts to enforce them.
2. Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City438 U.S. 104 (1978)PropertyThe application of the Landmarks Law to the Terminal property does not constitute a "taking" of appellants' property within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.
3. Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council505 U.S. 1003 (1992)PropertyThe State Supreme Court erred in applying the "harmful or noxious uses" principle to decide this case.
   Facts

   In 1986, petitioner Lucas bought two residential lots on a South Carolina barrier island, intending to build single-family homes such as those on the immediately adjacent parcels. At that time, Lucas's lots were not subject to the State's coastal zone building permit requirements. In 1988, however, the state legislature enacted the Beachfront Management Act, which barred Lucas from erecting any permanent habitable structures on his parcels. He filed suit against respondent state agency, contending that, even though the Act may have been a lawful exercise of the State's police power, the ban on construction deprived him of all "economically viable use" of his property and therefore effected a "taking" under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that required the payment of just compensation. See, e. g., Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 261. The state trial court agreed, finding that the ban rendered Lucas's parcels "valueless," and entered an award exceeding $1.2 million. In reversing, the State Supreme Court held itself bound, in light of Lucas's failure to attack the Act's validity, to accept the legislature's "uncontested... findings" that new construction in the coastal zone threatened a valuable public resource. The court ruled that, under the Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, line of cases, when a regulation is designed to prevent "harmful or noxious uses" of property akin to public nuisances, no compensation is owing under the Takings Clause regardless of the regulation's effect on the property's value.
4. Kelo v. City of New London545 U.S. 469 (2005)PropertyThe city’s proposed disposition of petitioners’ property qualifies as a “public use” within the meaning of the Takings Clause.
   Facts

   After approving an integrated development plan designed to revitalize its ailing economy, respondent city, through its development agent, purchased most of the property earmarked for the project from willing sellers, but initiated condemnation proceedings when petitioners, the owners of the rest of the property, refused to sell. Petitioners brought this state-court action claiming, inter alia, that the taking of their properties would violate the “public use” restriction in the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. The trial court granted a permanent restraining order prohibiting the taking of some of the properties, but denying relief as to others. Relying on cases such as Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229, and Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26, the Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part, upholding all of the proposed takings.

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