Opinion ID: 2506
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Cablevision's Fifth Amendment Challenge

Text: Finally, Cablevision asserts that by ordering it to carry WRNN, the FCC effected a per se taking under Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 426, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 73 L.Ed.2d 868 (1982). The sine qua non of the takings analysis in Loretto, however, is permanent physical occupation. Id. (emphasis added). This per se takings rule is very narrow, id. at 441, 102 S.Ct. 3164, and its touchstone is required acquiescence to the occupation of the property by an uninvited stranger or an interloper with a government license. FCC v. Fla. Power Corp., 480 U.S. 245, 252-53, 107 S.Ct. 1107, 94 L.Ed.2d 282 (1987); see also Buffalo Teachers Fed'n v. Tobe, 464 F.3d 362, 374 (2d Cir.2006) (Physical takings (or physical invasion or appropriation cases) occur when the government physically takes possession of an interest in property for some public purpose.). Our own test for whether a regulation constitutes a permanent physical occupation, set forth in Southview Associates, Ltd. v. Bongartz, 980 F.2d 84 (2d Cir.1992), looks to (1) the permanency of the invasion, and (2) whether the invasion is an absolute, exclusive physical occupation. Id. at 94-95. In turn, we must examine the nature of the interference with the bundle of rights that constitute ownership, id. at 95, such as the right to possess and exclude, the right to control the use of the property, and the right to sell the property. The initial determinationwhether the invasion is physical is primarily factual. Cf. John R. Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States, 457 F.3d 1345, 1357 (Fed.Cir.2006) ([T]he determination of whether government occupancy is `permanent' is highly fact-specific.). The fact finder must determine, in the first instance, whether any physical assets are involved. See, e.g., Qwest Corp. v. United States, 48 Fed.Cl. 672, 689 (2001) (In determining whether plaintiff's property has been subject to a physical taking, our initial inquiry must focus on the nature of the property at issue. What are the physical assets involved?). The FCC found that the transmission of WRNN over the Cablevision system did not require installation of any equipment at Cablevision's facilities. Rather, a programming stream is transmitted in bits of data over cable bandwidth through electrons or photons at the speed of light. 2007 FCC Order, 22 F.C.C.R. at 21058 ¶ 8. It further found that Cablevision retains complete control over its property. Id. We see no reason to disturb these findings or the conclusion that the transmission of WRNN's signal does not involve a physical occupation of Cablevision's equipment or property. And Cablevision effectively conceded that this physicality is absent here when it argued in its reply brief that [t]he result [under Loretto ] should be no different when the occupation is not of a physical pipeline but of an electronic one. Cablevision Reply Br. at 25. The amorphous nature of the alleged taking suggests that the takings claim here fits more comfortably within the Supreme Court's regulatory taking analytical framework. See Penn Cent. Trans. Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978). In order to establish a regulatory taking, Cablevision was required to show that the regulation had an economic impact that interfered with distinct investment-backed expectations. Id. at 124, 98 S.Ct. 2646. Cablevision has presented no such evidence despite its heavy burden on this issue, Tobe, 464 F.3d at 375, and any regulatory taking theory must therefore fail.