Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 589.0

524US2

Unit: $U94

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544

EASTERN ENTERPRISES v. APFEL

Opinion of Kennedy, J.

While there are instances where the Government’s self-
enrichment may make it all the more evident a taking has
occurred, e. g., Webb’s Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beck-
with, 449 U. S. 155 (1980); United States v. Causby, 328 U. S.
256 (1946), the Government ought not to have the capacity
to give itself immunity from a takings claim by the device of
requiring the transfer of property from one private owner
directly to another. Cf. Hawaii Housing Authority v. Mid-
kiff, 467 U. S. 229 (1984). At the same time, the Govern-
ment’s imposition of an obligation between private parties,
or destruction of an existing obligation, must relate to a spe-
ciﬁc property interest to implicate the Takings Clause. For
example, in United States v. Security Industrial Bank, we
confronted a statute which was alleged to destroy an existing
creditor’s lien in certain chattels to the beneﬁt of the debtor.
We acknowledged that, given the nature of the property
interest at stake, which resembled a contractual obligation,
the takings challenge “ﬁts but awkwardly into the analytic
framework” of our regulatory takings analysis.
459 U. S.,
at 75. We decided the analysis could apply because the
property interest was a “traditional property interes[t],”
though in the end the statute was found inapplicable to the
lien at issue.
In so holding, we relied on Louisville Joint
Stock Land Bank v. Radford, 295 U. S. 555 (1935), which in-
validated the Frazier-Lemke Farm-Mortgage Act, because it
interfered with mortgages on farms and thus worked a
“ ‘taking of substantive rights in speciﬁc property acquired
by the Bank prior to’ ” the Act.
459 U. S., at 77 (quoting
Radford, supra, at 590, 601). Unlike the statutes at issue
in Security Industrial Bank and Radford, the Coal Act
does not affect an obligation relating to a speciﬁc property
interest.

If the plurality is adopting its novel and expansive concept
of a taking in order to avoid making a normative judgment
about the Coal Act, it fails in the attempt; for it must make
the normative judgment in all events. See, e. g., ante, at 537
(“[T]he governmental action implicates fundamental princi-