Opinion ID: 46231
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Federal Takings Claims against the MRHA and Murphy

Text: 78 Urban Developers asserts that when the MRHA defendants issued vouchers to the Town Creek residents, and then arbitrary forced the tenants to use the vouchers elsewhere, the result was the breaking of the leaseholds between the tenants and the plaintiff, which resulted in the taking of those [lease] contracts. Because Urban Developers has yet to be denied compensation for this taking by the state of Mississippi (principally because they have not sought such compensation through Mississippi procedures), we hold that these federal takings claims are not yet ripe for review. 79 As discussed above, because a violation of the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause does not occur until just compensation is denied, Williamson County requires the plaintiff to have sought compensation for the alleged taking through whatever adequate procedures the state provides. Williamson County, 105 S.Ct. at 3120. Furthermore, this court has held that the unsettled status of state law does not render the available procedures inadequate; that is it must be certain that the state would deny that claimant compensation were he to undertake the obviously futile act of seeking it. Samaad, 940 F.2d at 934. On this issue, the plaintiff bears the burden of persuasion. Id. 80 Urban Developers again has not discharged that burden here. The MRHA clearly wields the power of eminent domain, Miss.Code Ann. § 43-33-19, and the State of Mississippi has long provided for actions in inverse condemnation. See, e.g., Wright v. Jackson Mun. Airport Auth., 300 So.2d 805 (Miss.1974); City of Gulfport v. Anderson, 554 So.2d 873 (Miss. 1989). Moreover, since the Mississippi courts have interpreted Mississippi's Takings Clause in light of the federal Takings Clause, the courts of Mississippi also provide plaintiffs with a cause of action for regulatory takings. See, e.g., Walters v. City of Greenville, 751 So.2d 1206, 1210-11 (Miss.App.1999) (citing Penn Central with approval); Tippitt v. City of Hernando, 909 So.2d 1190, 1193-94 (Miss.App.2005). It is an unsettled question, of course, the extent to which many jurisdictions will recognize as protected by the Takings Clause a property right in contract, 15 yet the plaintiff has identified nothing, and we have found nothing, to suggest that Mississippi law unquestionably would afford them no remedy. Samaad, 940 F.2d at 935. Accordingly, the plaintiff's federal takings claims against the MRHA and Murphy are unripe, and the district court was without jurisdiction to consider them. 81