Opinion ID: 445295
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Taking Without Compensation

Text: 36 Finally, Thompson contends the MPPAA effects a taking without compensation by depriving Thompson of its property rights in its contract. The fifth amendment's takings clause, however, does not prohibit Congress from readjusting the contractual relationships of private parties. In United States v. Security Industrial Bank, 459 U.S. 70, 103 S.Ct. 407, 74 L.Ed.2d 235 (1982), for example, a bank argued that the Bankruptcy Reform Act's invalidation of the bank's liens on a debtor's property constituted an uncompensated taking. Although the Court avoided the constitutional question by construing the statute narrowly, its discussion of the takings clause indicated its adherence to a distinction between purely contractual rights and identifiable property rights: 37 [O]ur cases recognize, as did the common law, that the contractual right of a secured creditor to obtain repayment of his debt may be quite different in legal contemplation from the property right of the same creditor in the collateral. 38 103 S.Ct. at 411. Relying on Security Industrial Bank, the Seventh Circuit in Peick held that employers' contractual disclaimers of pension fund liability were not protected by the takings clause. Peick, 724 F.2d at 1276. Accord Keith Fulton, 741 F.2d at 462-63; Republic Industries, 718 F.2d at 642-43. We agree that the Act does not effect an uncompensated taking of Thompson's property. 39