Opinion ID: 211579
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Significance of the 1991 Delineation

Text: 17 We recognize at the outset a fundamental tension in the Normans' takings claim. The Normans place heavy weight on the revocation of the 1988 Delineation and subsequent issuance of the 1991 Delineation, arguing repeatedly that this single circumstance renders their takings claim unique and sui generis. They argue, essentially, that because they bought the 470-acre parcel in reliance upon the 1988 Delineation, the subsequent and less favorable re-delineation culiminated in a taking of the 220.85 acres set aside nearly a decade later in accordance with the 1999 Permit. At the same time, appellants expressly disclaim any allegation that the 1999 Permit, of itself, effected a taking: they state that they are not ask[ing] this Court to hold that the government's routine requirement that a landowner set aside land as mitigation in exchange for a Section 404 wetland permit—as occurred in the 1999 Permit—violates the Just Compensation Clause. The primary error they allege is that by limiting its [takings] analysis solely to the permit, the trial court erred in excluding those very facts (the Corps' mistake and unlawful redelineation) that make this case uniquely a taking under the Fifth Amendment. 18 In other words, the Normans want this court to evaluate the entire sequence of events from 1988 through 1999 as a single transaction, in which the mitigation set-aside of 1999 followed ineluctably from the unprecedented 1991 Delineation. If we conclude that those two events were, for purposes of takings analysis, distinct—that the events of 1991 did not, in appellants' words, directly cause[] the Normans to lose 220.85 acres of property in 1999—then the bulk of their takings claims fail on that ground alone, because their challenge to the terms of the 1999 Permit is, according to their own argument, based solely upon the role of the 1991 Delineation in imposing those terms. 19 We find the Normans' argument unconvincing. The suggestion that Corps action in 1991 directly caused the Normans to lose 220.85 acres of property, most of which they did not own until 1994, strains the word directly well beyond its breaking point. The revocation and re-delineation that preceded the 1999 Permit by nearly a decade were but two of dozens of factual predicates leading up to the issuance of the 1999 Permit; others include the voluntary purchase, by appellants, of most of the land covered by that permit. That the decision to purchase that additional property may have been influenced, in small or large degree, by the events of 1988-1991 does not render it involuntary. The causal relationship between the revocation of the 1988 Delineation and the appellants' alleged loss is simply too attenuated to support the weight the Normans place upon it. 20 Because the Normans have disclaimed any challenge to the routine mitigation requirements of the 1999 Permit except insofar as they resulted from the unique 1991 Delineation, we believe this conclusion disposes of most of their takings claims without further analysis. In order to fully respond to the arguments appellants raise, however, we shall evaluate their claims in greater detail.