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Page Number: 42

10 

PENNEAST PIPELINE CO. v. NEW JERSEY 

BARRETT, J., dissenting 

of the State’s conduct. 

The  Court  also  brushes  past  New  Jersey’s  interests  by
failing to acknowledge that §717f(h) actions implicate state 
sovereignty.  PennEast has haled a State into court to de-
fend itself in an adversary proceeding about a forced sale of 
property.  See 6A J. Sackman, Nichols on Eminent Domain 
§27.01[1][b] (3d ed. 2019) (“A condemnation is an adversary 
proceeding  that  the  federal  government  initiates  against 
the owners to take their property”).  As required by Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 71.1(c), PennEast named New Jer-
sey in this suit.  Even if the State could, as PennEast con-
tends, refuse to appear and still retain its right to compen-
sation, it is difficult to see how the initiation of a judicial 
proceeding that seeks to wrest title to state property from
the  State  does  not  subject  the  State  to  coercive  legal  pro-
cess.  Cf.  United  States  v.  Alabama,  313  U. S.  274,  282 
(1941).

Moreover, obtaining title is not necessarily a cut-and-dry 
matter.  New Jersey points out that there is sometimes lit-
igation—as  there  was  here—about  whether  the  property
sought falls within the FERC certificate.  Brief for State Re-
spondents  24–25.  Compensation,  too,  can  be  a  matter  of 
dispute.  The State and the plaintiff are unlikely to see eye 
to eye on what the property is worth, and there is often a 
battle of the experts about the property’s value.  See 4 Sack-
man,  Nichols  on  Eminent  Domain  §13.01[1][b][i]  (“Estab-
lishing  the  value  of  real  estate  requires  a  valuation  ex-
pert”); ibid. (“ ‘Valuation of property is not an exact process
and courts are often greeted with conflicting appraisal tes-
timony’ ”).  If PennEast gets title at a bargain, New Jersey 
will suffer a loss even if no money leaves its treasury. 

IV 
It would be very odd for the government’s right to take
property for public use to exist only if private parties can
exercise it.  That, however, is the Court’s position.  And by