Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 599

524US2

Unit: $U94

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EASTERN ENTERPRISES v. APFEL

Breyer, J., dissenting

after they retired. And Eastern, until 1987, continued to
draw sizable proﬁts from the coal industry through a wholly
owned subsidiary. For these reasons, I believe that Con-
gress did not act unreasonably or otherwise unjustly in im-
posing these health care costs upon Eastern. Consequently,
in my view, the statute before us is constitutional.

I
As a preliminary matter, I agree with Justice Kennedy,
ante, at 539–547 (opinion concurring in judgment and dis-
senting in part), that the plurality views this case through
the wrong legal lens. The Constitution’s Takings Clause
does not apply. That Clause refers to the taking of “private
property .
. for public use, without just compensation.”
U. S. Const., Amdt. 5. As this language suggests, at the
heart of the Clause lies a concern, not with preventing arbi-
trary or unfair government action, but with providing com-
pensation for legitimate government action that takes “pri-
vate property” to serve the “public” good.

.

The “private property” upon which the Clause tradition-
ally has focused is a speciﬁc interest in physical or intellec-
tual property. See, e. g., Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New
York City, 438 U. S. 104, 124 (1978); Ruckelshaus v. Mon-
It requires compensation
santo Co., 467 U. S. 986 (1984).
when the government takes that property for a public pur-
pose. See Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U. S. 374, 384 (1994)
(Clause requires payment so that government cannot
“ ‘forc[e] some people alone to bear public burdens which, in
all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a
whole’ ” (quoting Armstrong v. United States, 364 U. S. 40,
49 (1960))). This case involves not an interest in physical or
intellectual property, but an ordinary liability to pay money,
and not to the Government, but to third parties.

This Court has not directly held that the Takings Clause
applies to the creation of this kind of liability. The Court
has made clear that not only seizures through eminent do-