Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-1993
ISSN
0841-8209
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Language
en-US
Abstract
The takings clause of the United States Constitution requires government to pay compensation when private property is taken for public use.' When government regulates, but does not physically seize, property, the Supreme Court of the United States has had trouble defining when individuals have been deprived of property rights so as to give them a right to compensation. The takings clause serves "to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens that, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole."' To determine when a regulation amounts to a "taking" of property requiring compensation, the Court has rightly stated that the ultimate question is whether the burden of regulation has been unfairly placed on a small class of individuals rather than the public at large.' To answer this question, the Court has identified a variety of factors to consider, including the character of the governmental action, (whether the regulation effects a permanent physical invasion, destroys a core property right, or is intended to prevent public harm),' whether the regulation interferes with reasonable investment-backed expectations,7 and the extent of the diminution in value of the property (particularly whether the regulation deprives the owner of any economically viable use of the property).8
Recommended Citation
Jack M. Beermann & Joseph William Singer,
The Social Origins of Property
,
in
6
Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence
217
(1993).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/2296
