Source: http://justicesanders.com/writings/takings.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 19:01:09+00:00

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The Fifth Amendment focuses directly on property issues.
The Due Process clause (repeated almost verbatim in the Fourteenth Amendment) specifically includes property within the same constitutional protections as life and liberty. The Takings Clause, however, speaks only of taking property. Note that these are two separate clauses which serve separate functions, although the United States Supreme Court has applied both to the states as another aspect of that process which is due a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment. Compare Armendariz v. Penman, 75 F.3d 1311 (9th Cir. 1996) ("private takings" claims should be reviewed under Fifth Amendment takings analysis, not Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process analysis).
It is insufficient to know a taking when you see one unless you can also articulate a reason why, or why not, a taking has occurred. Thus conceptualizing some basic principles will at least help us to begin to understand the hodgepodge of contradictory court decisions which seem to otherwise defy comparison.
The guiding principle of takings law is well summarized in Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49, 80 S. Ct. 1563, 1569, 4 L. Ed. 2d 155 (1960): "The fifth amendment’s guarantee . . . was designed to bar government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole." Hold that thought.
A taking may occur in one of two ways. The governmental act may constitute a taking if it (1) does not substantially promote legitimate public interests, or (2) deprives the owner of any profitable use of the land. Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 260-61, 100 S. Ct. 2138, 65 L. Ed. 2d 106 (1980).
This guiding principle and these two alternative "prongs" underlie what seems great judicial confusion over the true meaning of this clause. However, the controversy finds its origin in the original text.
What is a taking? A "taking" in its clearest form is a physical appropriation of property to the government. There was "no individual power of eminent domain in the state of nature, which is why it was known in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as ‘the despotic power.’" Roger Pilon, Can American Asset Forfeiture Law Be Justified?, 39 N.Y. Law School L. Rev. 311, 320 (1994) (citing William Stoebuck, A General Theory of Eminent Domain, 47 Wash. L. Rev. 553, 585-86 (1972). When the government wants to build a highway through your property, it will usually proceed by initiating a condemnation proceeding to carry its burden to establish (1) the public use and necessity and (2) appropriate compensation. Appropriations of this kind, however, are not limited to real property but also include personal property. "Property" is defined by state law. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S. Ct. 2701, 2709, 33 L. Ed. 2d 548 (1972). Our state, and most other states, define property in an extremely broad sense.
Ackerman v. Port of Seattle, 55 Wn.2d 400, 409, 348 P.2d 664 (1960) (quoting from Spann v. City of Dallas, 111 Tex. 350, 355, 235 S.W. 513, 19 A.L.R. 1387 (1921)).
Property consists of intangible rights as well as a tangible ones. Permits, in and of themselves, create property rights when the statutory scheme for permit issuance imposes "significant substantive restrictions" on the decision to grant a permit. Bateson v. Geisse, 857 F.2d 1300, 1304-05 (9th Cir. 1988) (building permit). This is even true of discretionary permits. See, e.g., Parks v. Watson, 716 F.2d 646 (9th Cir. 1983) (street vacation permit).
Of particular interest is the United States Supreme Court case of Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith, 449 U.S. 155, 101 S. Ct. 446, 66 L. Ed. 2d 358 (1980) which holds governmental attempts to appropriate interest from bank accounts is a "taking" for Fifth Amendment purposes. The Washington Legal Foundation has sued the Legal Foundation of Washington (your friendly IOLTA people) as well as the State Supreme Court for withholding this interest from the trust accounts of limited practice officers and their employers. The basis for this suit is the Fifth Amendment. A Fifth Circuit case applied the Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies rule to attorney trust accounts invalidating a Texas program almost identical to the Washington IOLTA rule. Washington Legal Found. v. Texas Equal Access to Justice Found., 94 F.3d 996 (5th Cir. 1996), cert. granted in part by Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 117 S. Ct. 2535, 138 L. Ed. 2d 1011 (1997).
The first area involves the so called "regulatory" taking wherein the property owner claims that although the government has not appropriated his land in the traditional sense it has restricted its use to accomplish a public purpose to a sufficient degree (sufficient degree is always a matter of dispute) to accomplish a "taking" in the constitutional sense. We most often associate this line of thinking with Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 43 S. Ct. 158, 160, 67 L. Ed. 322, 28 A.L.R. 1321 (1922) wherein Justice Holmes tells us a use restriction which "goes too far" constitutes a taking even where the property itself remains in the possession of the property owner. The latest expression of this rule is found in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 112 S. Ct. 2886, 120 L. Ed. 2d 798 (1992) wherein the Supreme Court held a total restriction of use inconsistent with background property principles constitutes a per se taking, while hinting a use restriction less than total may also constitute a taking, but not per se. An aspect of this analysis must concern whether the parcel as a whole is to be considered or only a portion thereof. See Allingham v. City of Seattle, 109 Wn.2d 947, 749 P.2d 160, 757 P.2d 533 (1988), overruled by Presbytery of Seattle v. King County, 114 Wn.2d 320, 787 P.2d 907, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 911, 111 S. Ct. 284, 112 L. Ed. 2d 238 (1990) (entire parcel must be considered to determine remaining use). See pages 22-23, ante.
The other quagmire involves permit conditions or exactions.
"For public use" is our segue to the second prong of the takings doctrine which generally holds a taking occurs if a land use regulation fails to substantially advance legitimate state interests. Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 260, 100 S. Ct. 2138, 65 L. Ed. 2d 106 (1980). The burden is on the government to show it does. Nollan, 483 U.S. at 836 n.3; Dolan, 114 S. Ct. at 2320 n.8. Although this part of the doctrine also encompasses appropriations of property for private, not public, use (which are outright prohibited) (see, e.g., In re City of Seattle, 96 Wn.2d 616, 638 P.2d 549 (1981) (condemnation of Westlake Mall property improper because for private use); but see Hawaii Housing Auth. v. Midkiff, 467 U.S. 229, 104 S. Ct. 2321, 81 L. Ed. 2d 186 (1984) (public purpose, as distinguished from use, good enough)), by far the most meaningful example of this are permit exaction cases such as Nollan v. California Coastal Comm’n, 483 U.S. 825, 107 S. Ct. 3141, 97 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1987) where a residential building permit was conditioned that the property owner grant the public an easement to walk across his beach. Eventually the United States Supreme Court found that this was a taking because there was an insufficient nexus between the harm which might be caused by the proposed property development, and the easement, i.e., they were unrelated and the condition was a form of government "extortion." The most recent Supreme Court application of this rule appears in Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 114 S. Ct. 2309, 129 L. Ed. 2d 304 (1994) wherein exacting a bike path was a condition to permit approval. Dolan clarifies the Nollan nexus requirement by specifying that an exaction, to be legitimate, must be roughly proportional to the impact of the development under consideration. Compare Sparks v. Douglas County, 127 Wn.2d 901, 904 P.2d 738 (1995) (A subdivision developer resisted dedication of private property to a public street, contending that the street improvement was not necessitated by his development. Our court concluded that the exaction had sufficient nexus because it was roughly proportional to the consequences of the project proposal.).
Yet another layer of controversy surrounds these cases in the sense that some courts and commentators would limit the rule to cases where exactions of real property are required as a permit condition whereas other courts and commentators would apply the rule to any permit condition or exaction (whether consisting of real property or not). Some Washington cases seem to limit the rule to real property exactions. See Sintra, Inc. v. City of Seattle, 119 Wn.2d 1, 16 n.7, 829 P.2d 765 (1992), cert. denied sub nom. by Robinson v. City of Seattle, 506 U.S., 1028, 113 S. Ct. 676, 121 L. Ed. 2d 598 (1992); but see Sintra, Inc. v. City of Seattle (Sintra II), 131 Wn.2d 640, 674, 935 P.2d 555 (1997) (Durham, C. J., concurs that HPO fee was a taking) (Durham, J., was author of Sintra I). Compare Nollan, 483 U.S. at 837 (requirement to pay $100 fee to shout fire lacks nexus to purpose of prohibition).
Another aspect of the taking problem is "ripeness." The ripeness doctrine usually pertains to takings claims arising from alleged overregulation. It has two prongs: (1) determining remaining uses of the property (MacDonald, Sommer & Frates v. Yolo County, 477 U.S. 340, 106 S. Ct. 2561, 2566, 91 L. Ed. 2d 285 (1986) ("A court cannot determine whether a regulation has gone ‘too far’ unless it knows how far the regulation goes.")); and (2) determining whether the party seeking compensation for a state taking has first sought (or must seek) compensation in the state before going to federal court.
The first prong of the ripeness doctrine was recently clarified in Suitum v. Tahoe Reg’l Planning Agency, __ U.S. __, 117 S. Ct. 1659, 137 L. Ed. 2d, 980 (1997) decided on May 27, 1997. There the Supreme Court held that the ripeness doctrine does not apply to a claim for taking where the restriction on the use of the land is known although a landowner’s right to receive some benefit through transferable development rights is still a possibility. I posit, however, this aspect of the ripeness doctrine has nothing to do with taking claims which arise in the permit exaction context because such claims are based upon legitimacy, not upon the degree of use restriction.
The most recent Washington Supreme Court discussion on compensation is contained in Sintra, Inc. v. City of Seattle (Sintra II), 131 Wn.2d 640, 935 P.2d 555 (1997). This appeal arose from the remand of Sintra I, wherein the jury awarded compensation for the leasehold value of the property during the period of the temporary taking. The jury was instructed that the gross leasehold value of the property as proposed to be built, for the period of the temporary taking, was the appropriate measure of compensation. The court held an award of reasonable attorney fees plus at least simple interest (compounded if you could prove necessity) were also necessary components of just compensation.
It is interesting to note that the jury award reviewed in Sintra II represents a jury determination that there was no remaining economic use (a second prong determination) whereas it was Sintra’s view that this was more properly viewed as a first prong "legitimacy" taking. However, the first prong analysis was apparently rejected by Justice Durham who wrote the majority opinion in Sintra I although her concurrence in Sintra II seems to suggest an acceptance of a first prong taking. ("We have already held that the HPO went far beyond the prevention of the anticipated harm of Sintra’s proposed use of its property, and imposed a burden to provide an affirmative public benefit, a burden which should have been born by the public as a whole. [Footnote omitted.] Based on this effect of the HPO, it has already been determined that the denial of Sintra’s proposed land use under the HPO amounted to a regulatory taking. Thus, under a correct analysis of the threshold issue, we would never reach Justice Talmadge’s proposed inquiry into whether the HPO demolition fee was ‘roughly proportional’ to the public benefit."). Sintra II, 131 Wn.2d at 674-75.
As a further caveat we must recall that an illegitimate taking (such as a private taking, see In re Seattle) is not justified even if compensation is paid.
e.	make some economically viable use of property?
If yes, a taking has occurred; provided if no economically viable use of the property is permitted, we must still ask if the intended uses are allowed under background property principles. If yes, a taking has occurred under that criteria as well.
(a)	Does the regulation safeguard the public interest in health, safety, environment or fiscal integrity of an area?
(ii)	Does it infringe on fundamental attributes of property ownership?
(3)	the character of the governmental action.
If the "balance" favors a taking, it is a taking. If none of the above, however, there may be a due process violation.
The aforementioned formulation, however, raises a number of further concerns.
First, development rights are not listed as a "fundamental" attribute of property ownership notwithstanding substantial case law which says they are. Compare pp. 16-17, ante.
Second, the question of whether or not one can make "some economically viable use" of his property raises the further question of whether we must consider the size of the parcel as a whole (see, e.g., Presbytery of Seattle v. King County, 114 Wn.2d 320, 787 P.2d 907, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 911, 111 S. Ct. 284, 112 L. Ed. 2d 238 (1990)), or whether deprivation of something less than the entire parcel will suffice. Compare physical invasion (e.g., Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 102 S. Ct. 3164, 73 L. Ed. 2d 868 (1982) (TV cable wire is taking) with cases that hold deprivation of significant use are not taking, e.g, Presbytery.
A third problem involves the legitimacy prong of the test illustrated by Nollan. Obviously Nollan deals with the right to develop ones property notwithstanding "illegitimate" governmental permitting restrictions in the form of insufficiently related exactions. These types of takings do not seem to fit within this grand outline.
Another objection is what is meant by "health, safety, environment or fiscal integrity of an area?" Under some circumstances these may describe, or be difficult to distinguish from, the "public benefit" which is supposedly the alternative.
And what is a "legitimate state interest?" Is it a hypothetical interest which is within the police power or is it the specific interest actually sought to be advanced by the regulation in question? And what if the regulation is unlawful or invalid for some other state law reason—for example, the housing preservation ordinance was an invalid tax as held by San Telmo v. City of Seattle, 108 Wn.2d 20, 735 P.2d 673 (1987) and R/L Assocs., Inc. v. City of Seattle, 113 Wn.2d 402, 780 P.2d 838 (1989). Compare Sederquist v. City of Tiburon, 765 F.2d 756, 761 (9th Cir. 1984) (conditions imposed which are illegal under state law yield "taking").
When we get to the balancing test, what do these terms mean, how much do each of them "weigh," and how are they supposed to be weighed?
Now if all this seems confusing, at least you may be rest assured that you are not alone.
While the text of Constitution Article I, § 16, amend. 9, and U.S. Constitution Fifth Amendment significantly differ, no modern Washington authority undertakes an independent interpretation of the state constitutional provision on eminent domain. See by Presbytery of Seattle v. King County, 114 Wn.2d 320, 787 P.2d 907, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 911, 111 S. Ct. 284, 112 L. Ed. 2d 238 (1990). This may be the case because lawyers (like me) declined to brief the issue pursuant to the criteria set forth in State v. Gunwall, 106 Wn.2d 54, 720 P.2d 808, 76 A.L.R.4th 517 (1986) or perhaps because the court sidestepped the issue, deferring an independent analysis which might require a radical departure from current practice.
One resource as little known as it is valuable is a series of student term papers prepared for Justice Robert Utter’s U.P.S. Law School course on state constitutional law, now taught by Justice Charles Johnson (who has collected and maintained the papers at the Supreme Court under each state constitutional provision to which they pertain). Special thanks therefore goes to the following law students, most of whom are now practicing attorneys—Tanya Button, Mary Helen Carrosino, Thomas M. Ellington, Tracy Douglas Forsythe, Richard Piccioni, Robert Raymond, and William G. Simmons.
1.	Does the requirement that "no private property shall be taken or damaged . . ." provide a broader right than similar language in the Fifth Amendment which states ". . . nor shall private property be taken . . . ", particularly with respect to nontrespatory regulation of use?
The text of Washington Constitution Article I, § 16, amend. 9, Eminent Domain, is most important. It differs significantly in text from its Fifth Amendment cousin.
The court should never allow a change in public sentiment to influence them in giving the construction to the written constitution not warranted by the intention of the founders. State ex rel. O’Connell v. Slavin, 75 Wn.2d 554, 452 P.2d 943 (1969). The meaning of the state constitution was fixed at the time it was adopted and must be construed in the sense in which the framers understood it. Boeing Aircraft Co. v. Reconstruction Fin. Corp., 25 Wn.2d 652, 171 P.2d 838, 168 A.L.R. 539 (1946). A constitutional provision should receive a consistent and uniform interpretation. Even though the circumstances may have changed to make a different rule seem more desirable, the constitution should not be taken to mean one thing at one time and another at another time. State ex rel. Lemon v. Langlie, 45 Wn.2d 82, 273 P.2d 464 (1954). Nor is it the role of the supreme court to engraft exceptions where none are expressed in the constitutional provision, no matter how desirable or expedient such exception might seem. State ex rel. O’Connell v. Port of Seattle, 65 Wn.2d 801, 399 P.2d 623 (1965).
Perhaps these considerations are particularly important with respect to Article I, § 16, since alternative approaches so often lead to results which simply cannot be reconciled with the text or, for that matter, each other (although supported by ample precedent).
We have repeatedly stated that "property" encompasses many rights. The word "property" is used in the constitutional sense in a "comprehensive and unlimited sense . . . . it is not any particular kind of property that is mentioned, but the wording is no private property." State v. Superior Court, 26 Wash. 278, 286, 66 P. 385 (1901). Property in a thing consists not merely in its ownership and possession, but in the unrestricted right of use, enjoyment, and disposal. Lange v. State, 86 Wn.2d 585, 590, 547 P.2d 282 (1976) (citing Ackerman v. Port of Seattle, 55 Wn.2d 400, 409, 348 P.2d 664, 77 A.L.R. 2d 1344 (1960).
While it is up to each state to define property for itself, the right to use one’s property has been universally understood to be a fundamental attribute of real property ownership. Compare Eaton v. Boston, C. and M.R.R., 51 N.H. 504, 511-512 (1872) ("the framers of the Constitution intended to protect property rights which are worth protecting; not mere empty titles . . . among those elements is, fundamentally, the right of use . . . ") and Lord Coke: "to deprive one of the use of his land is depriving him of his land. What is the land but the profits thereof?" See also John M. Groen and Richard M. Stephens, Takings Law, Lucas, and the Growth Management Act, 16 U. Puget Sound L. Rev. 1259, at 1266, 1295 (Spring 1993).
[T]he distinction between the two concepts—"taking" and "damaging"—must be determined by the "quality" or "character" of the governmental interference. Where such interference is mere happenstance, fortuitous or of inconsequential dimension, that interference may properly be classified as a "damaging." Where, however, the character of the governmental interference with private property rights is planned, deliberate and substantial, such interference, upon proper factual showing, should be deemed a ‘taking. . . .
The Wandermere definition is consistent with the more fundamental canon of statutory construction that different words when used in the same text must mean different things. See, e.g., State ex rel. Public Disclosure Comm’n v. Rains, 87 Wn.2d 626, 634, 555 P.2d 1368, 94 A.L.R.3d 933 (1976).
However Highline School Dist. v. Port of Seattle, 87 Wn.2d 6, 11, 548 P.2d 1085 (1976) contains confusing language suggesting, perhaps in dicta, that there is really no difference between "taking" and "damaging." See also Sintra, Inc. v. City of Seattle, 119 Wn.2d 1, 829 P.2d 765, cert. denied sub nom. by Robinson v. City of Seattle, 506 U.S., 1028, 113 S. Ct. 676, 121 L. Ed. 2d 598 (1992) (dicta). However Highline preceded Gunwall by about ten years and evidenced no deliberate intent to define or redefine these terms for the purpose of establishing their independent meaning in Article I, § 16. "Cases decided without benefit of Gunwall scrutiny lack the precedential force which follows from this more thorough review." State v. Rivers, 129 Wn.2d 697, 723, 921 P.2d 495 (1996) (Sanders, J., dissenting).
It would be a very curious and unsatisfactory result, if in construing [the just compensation clause], . . . it shall be held that if the government refrains from the absolute conversion of real property to uses of the public it can destroy its value entirely, can inflict irreparable and permanent injury to any extent, can, in effect, subject it to total destruction without making any compensation, because, in the narrowest sense of that word, it is not taken for the public use.
Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co., 81 U.S. (13 Wall.) 166, 177-78 (1871). There the matter lay, relatively dormant, until the famous opinion by Oliver Wendell Holmes in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 415, 43 S. Ct. 158, 160, 67 L. Ed. 322 (1922) ("The general rule at least is that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.").
The federal courts have been fairly unsuccessful in their attempts to define a principled and easily applicable rule to determine when a regulation goes "too far." Professor Charles Haar has suggested that the difference between a police power regulation and a regulatory taking "may be the lawyer’s equivalent of the physicist’s hunt for the quark." Charles Haar, Land Use Planning 766 (3d ed. 1977).
For my purposes, at least, "regulatory taking" cases are cases which involve governmental imposition or restriction of some use a private property owner would otherwise be entitled to make of his property. This would exclude physical invasion cases such as Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 102 S. Ct. 3164, 73 L. Ed. 2d 868 (1982) (cable TV wire to apartment house is a taking) as well as cases involving an exaction in exchange for a land use permit. See, e.g., Nollan v. California Coastal Comm’n, 483 U.S. 825, 107 S. Ct. 3141, 97 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1987) (condition on development is not legitimate if it does not arise from a problem caused by the development), and Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 114 S. Ct. 2309, 129 L. Ed. 2d 304 (1994) (refinement of Nollan nexus test). Regulatory takings would also seem to be generally inapplicable to personal property, although that point seems at least debatable. Compare Concrete Pipe & Prods. of California v. Construction Laborers Pension Trust, 508 U.S. 602, 113 S. Ct. 2264, 124 L. Ed. 2d 539 (1993).
Other federal regulatory cases from United States courts of appeal which post-dated Lucas include Reahard v. Lee County, 968 F.2d 1131 (11th Cir. 1992); Florida Rock Indus. v. United States, 18 F.3d 1560 (Fed. Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1109, 115 S. Ct. 898, 130 L. Ed. 2d 783 (1995); and Loveladies Harbor, Inc. v. United States, 27 F.3d 1545 (Fed. Cir.) (procedural decision, en banc) aff’d by 28 F.3d 1171 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (merits).
The modern trend in federal authority appears to be that less than the entire parcel of property need be considered as the takings "denominator." See Lucas, 505 U.S. 1003, 1016 n.7, and that it is not necessary that all of the use need be taken by regulation to afford the owner the right of compensation. See Lucas, 505 U.S. at 1020 n.8. This is to say that the United States Supreme Court seems to be working its way around to what the Washington State Supreme Court did in Allingham v. City of Seattle, 109 Wn.2d 947, 749 P.2d 160, 757 P.2d 533 (1988) (city greenbelt ordinance which restricted the use of 70 percent of the lot, leaving the owner unfettered use of the remaining 30 percent, is a taking). See also Takings, supra, at 149-50. However the Washington Supreme Court was soon to overrule Allingham in Presbytery of Seattle v. King County, 114 Wn.2d 320, 787 P.2d 907, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 911, 111 S. Ct. 284, 112 L. Ed. 2d 238 (1990), marking a retreat from the partial parcel "denominator" it had previously defined in Allingham.
(b)	if some use remains, a taking may still have occurred subject to an ad hoc balancing of various interests.
Suffice to say federal regulatory takings law was virtually nonexistent prior to the adoption of our State Constitution and subsequent recent precedent hardly sheds any light on the "original intent" of our constitutional framers as to the meaning of "taking" much less "damaging" which has no federal counterpart in any event.
Another interesting area of inquiry would be the state of local and statutory law in 1889 Washington as it pertained to regulations which might constitute a taking, as well as what historical references there may be to the zeitgeist of that era.
"The newcomers," observed Muir, "building their cabins where beavers once built theirs, keep a few cows and industriously seek to enlarge their small meadow patches by chopping, girdling, and burning the edge of the encircling forest, gnawing like beavers, and scratching for a living among the blackened stumps and logs, regarding the trees as their greatest enemies—a sort of larger pernicious weed immensely difficult to get rid of."
These folks don’t seem like Sierra Club members!
Based upon the preceding quotation, I do not see a great deal of sympathy amongst the general population for land use restrictions in 1889 Washington. Once again, my research on this point has not been exhaustive.
6.	Early Washington Precedent on "Damaging"
Justice Theodore Stiles (1848-1925), author of the opinion, was a delegate to the Washington State Constitutional Convention in 1889 and played a leading role at the convention, chairing the Committee on County, Township, and Municipal Organizations and serving on the Rules, Judiciary, and Public Lands Committee as well. Charles H. Sheldon, The Washington High Bench (WSU Press 1992) 326-28. Stiles was nominated for the state supreme court by the Republican Party and, with his four Republican brethren, thrashed the democratic opposition in October 1889 balloting. According to Professor Sheldon: "Judge Stiles developed a reputation as a scholar as the state’s leading authority on the Washington Constitution." Id. at 327.
At this point some observations from the excellent student paper prepared by Tracy Douglas Forsythe "Inverse Condemnation—A Non Sequitur in Washington?" become most appropriate. According to Forsythe the phrase "without just compensation having first been made" . . . "would seem to imply an affirmative act that seems inconsistent with inverse condemnation. Inverse condemnation or regulatory takings [without prior compensation] are based upon the premise that the government is not affirmatively exercising its eminent domain power, that in fact the government has regulated to the extent that a defacto [sic] taking has occurred. The requirement that compensation be first paid could imply that unless payment is made as a threshold, the power to take or damage does not exist. This is distinctly different from the language of the Fifth Amendment . . . ." Forsythe at 16. He argues because the Constitution requires up front compensation, so-called inverse condemnation would be an ultra virus act regardless of whether compensation was later required or offered. Forsythe at 21. Although no precedent is cited for the proposition it is difficult to argue with this logic.
The other side of the "public use" question is legitimacy in a broader sense. Compare Nollan v. California Coastal Comm’n, 483 U.S. 825, 107 S. Ct. 3141, 97 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1987) (there must be a substantial nexus between the proposed private development and the asserted public purpose of the permit condition to avoid the prohibited taking).
This provision of Article I, § 16 is also consistent with federal case law which burdens the government to justify its actions under the takings clause. See Nollan, 483 U.S. at 834 n.3 and see Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 114 S. Ct. 2309, 2320 n.8, 129 L. Ed. 2d 304 (1994).

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