Opinion ID: 595490
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Permanent Physical Occupation

Text: 53 Southview first argues that the district court erred because it has alleged facts which, if proved, would establish that it has been compelled to submit to a physical occupation of its property. Southview contends that the Board caused this injury by denying its application for an Act 250 permit, and by prohibiting Southview from developing its property in any way that would exclude the deer from the deeryard. These actions allegedly deprive Southview of its right to exclude the deer from its property, which amounts to a physical occupation of the property. Furthermore, Southview contends that this occupation is permanent because the Board has permanently designated portions of its property as a deeryard. 54 If a government has committed or authorized a permanent physical occupation of property, the Takings Clause generally requires compensation. Yee v. City of Escondido, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1522, 1526, 118 L.Ed.2d 153 (1992); see also Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 2893, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992). Indeed, as Southview correctly points out, if government action constitutes a permanent physical occupation of property, there is a taking to the extent of the occupation, without regard to whether the action achieves an important public benefit or has only minimal economic impact on the owner. Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 434-35, 102 S.Ct. 3164, 3175, 73 L.Ed.2d 868 (1982). This type of taking, requiring courts to apply a per se rule, has been termed a physical taking, see Yee, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1527, and stands in contrast to the fact-intensive inquiry accompanying a judicial determination of whether a regulatory taking has occurred. 3 Id. --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1526. 55 Loretto helps define what constitutes a physical taking. In Loretto, the Court reviewed a New York law that required a landlord to permit a cable company to install cable equipment on his building. Loretto, 458 U.S. at 421, 102 S.Ct. at 3168. The Court held that the permanent cable installation on the landlord's building was a permanent appropriation of a portion of the landlord's property and, therefore, constituted a physical taking, even though it displaced only approximately one-half of a cubic foot of property. Loretto, 458 U.S. at 438 & n. 16, 102 S.Ct. at 3177 & n. 16. The Loretto Court explained that a permanent physical occupation occurs when government action permanently destroys the three rights associated with the ownership of property: the power to possess, to use, and to dispose. Id. at 435, 102 S.Ct. at 3175. First, the government (or government authorized) action must deprive the owner of both his right to possess the occupied area and his right to exclude the occupier from possession and use of it. Id. Second, the government action must forever den[y] the owner any power to control the use of the property, such that he can make no nonpossessory use of it. Id. at 436, 102 S.Ct. at 3176. Third, the government action generally leaves the owner with only the bare legal right to dispose of the occupied space, because the occupier ordinarily renders that right worthless, and the purchaser will also be unable to make any use of the property. Id. The Court added that absolute exclusivity of the occupation, and absolute deprivation of the owner's right to use and exclude others from the property, were hallmarks of a physical taking. Id. at 435 n. 12, 102 S.Ct. at 3176 n. 12. In setting forth this test, the Court also noted that the injury was special because the occupation is by a stranger. Id. at 436, 102 S.Ct. at 3176. In conclusion, the Loretto Court emphasized that its determination that the facts before it constituted a permanent physical occupation was very narrow, and that states retained broad power to impose appropriate restrictions upon an owner's use of his property. Id. at 441, 102 S.Ct. at 3179. 56 Two subsequent cases, Yee and FCC v. Florida Power Corp., 480 U.S. 245, 107 S.Ct. 1107, 94 L.Ed.2d 282 (1987), confirm the narrow scope of so-called physical takings. In Florida Power Corp., the Court addressed a challenge to the Pole Attachments Act, 47 U.S.C. § 224 (1988), which authorizes the FCC to regulate certain rates utility companies can charge cable television operators who lease utility company poles to carry their television cables. Id. at 247, 107 S.Ct. at 1109. Despite a substantial reduction in rent effected by the FCC regulation, the Court held that no physical taking had occurred because the utility had invited the cable company to lease the poles; no government compulsion existed. Id. at 252-53, 107 S.Ct. at 1112-13. As the Court explained, required acquiescence is at the heart of the concept of occupation, id. at 252, 107 S.Ct. at 1112, but such required acquiescence was notably absent in the facts before the Court. 57 Government compulsion was also absent in Yee. The Court ruled that an Escondido, California municipal rent control ordinance applicable to mobile home park owners did not authorize an unwanted physical occupation. Yee, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1531. The petitioners, mobile home park owners, claimed that the rent control ordinance rendered the mobile home owners perpetual tenants. They also claimed that the ordinance, in mandating below-market rates, transferred from the park owners, to the existing tenants, an increase in the value of their mobile homes--a gain that the tenants could realize when they sold their mobile homes to new purchasers. In effect, the park owners contended, the ordinance transferred to the tenants a right of physical occupation of the park owner's land. Id. --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1528. The Court determined, however, that no physical taking had occurred because the government had not authorized a mandatory physical occupation of the park owner's property. Id. The Court explained that the government effects a physical taking only where it requires the landowner to submit to the physical occupation of his land. Id. No government compulsion was present in Yee because the [p]etitioners voluntarily rented their land to mobile home owners, and moreover they were not compelled to continue to do so. Id. The Court concluded that, even if the ordinance operated to transfer wealth from the park owners to the mobile home owners, it represented a regulation on the use of the petitioners' property, rather than a per se taking by virtue of a permanent physical occupation. Id. --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1530-31. 58 Application of the principles set forth in Loretto, Florida Power Corp., and Yee demonstrate that Southview has not suffered a physical taking. Initially, we note that Southview has satisfied the permanency aspect of a physical taking for the purposes of a Fed.R.Civ.P. Rule 12(b)(6) motion, because it alleges that the Board will continue, permanently, to deny Southview an Act 250 permit that would impair the deeryard. However, Southview has failed adequately to allege the remaining elements of a physical taking. 59 Consider the three components of property rights discussed in Loretto. See Loretto, 458 U.S. at 435-36, 102 S.Ct. at 3175-76. First, Southview has not lost the right to possess the allegedly occupied land that forms part of the deeryard. Southview retains the right to exclude any persons from the land, perhaps by posting No Trespassing signs. Southview can even exclude the deer, perhaps with a fence, provided it does so under circumstances that do not require it to obtain an Act 250 permit--such as by the planting of an orchard. Second, Southview retains substantial power to control the use of the property. For example, it could construct improvements involving up to 10 acres of it for any purpose--construction of an inn may be possible--because Act 250 does not apply to development involving less than 10 acres. 10 V.S.A § 6001(3) (Supp.1991). Moreover, according to the terms of Act 250, Southview could engage in construction for farming, logging or forestry purposes, id., on the entire 44 acres of critical softwood in the deeryard without the need to seek a permit from the Commission. 4 In addition, Southview's owners can, to the exclusion of others, walk, camp, cross-country ski, observe wildlife, even hunt deer on this land--irrespective of whether these activities cause the deer to abandon the deeryard. Third, because all of these uses, and many more, are available to any owner of the deeryard land, Southview's right to sell the land is by no means worthless. The Board's denial of Southview's one application for an Act 250 permit can hardly be said to have empt[ied] ... of any value Southview's right to dispose of the 44 acres of deeryard. See Loretto, 458 U.S. at 436, 102 S.Ct. at 3175. 60 Put differently, no absolute, exclusive physical occupation exists. See id. at 435 n. 12, 102 S.Ct. at 3176 n. 12. To the extent the Board has allowed the deer to invade Southview's land, this invasion is relatively minor, consisting of an occasional, seasonal, and limited habitation by no more than 20 deer. 5 Minor physical intrusions are not physical takings. See id. at 426, 102 S.Ct. at 3171. Indeed, the deer activity displaces only a few sticks in the bundle of rights that constitute ownership. See Oakes, Property Rights in Constitutional Analysis Today, 56 Wash.L.Rev. 583, 589 (1981). In any event, no absolute dispossession of Southview's property rights has occurred. See Loretto, 458 U.S. at 435 n. 12, 102 S.Ct. at 3176 n. 12. Under Loretto, there has been no physical taking. 61 Application of the government compulsion requirement--central to the results in Florida Power Corp. and Yee--yields a similar result. In Yee, there was no government compulsion because the mobile home park owners voluntarily rented their land to mobile home owners, and they were not compelled to continue to do so. Yee, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1528. The Court considered the park owners' submission to the rent control ordinance, as well as their submission to the resultant alleged physical invasion, to have been voluntary even though the owners were apparently engaged in this business before the ordinance was enacted. 62 Here, even if the Board's action were a permanent physical occupation, there was no government compulsion. Just as the mobile home park owners voluntarily rented their land in Yee and, in so doing, engaged in activity that subjected them to the effects of the rent control ordinance, id., Southview voluntarily proposed to construct a residential subdivision development project, and, in so doing, engaged in activity that subjected it to the Act 250 review process. Moreover, at the time Southview purchased the land it knew that the project would be subjected to Act 250 scrutiny. Denial of the Act 250 permit--foreclosing one configuration of a development plan--represents a regulation of the use of Southview's property, rather than a per se physical taking. See id., --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1528-31; see also Kaufman v. City of New York, 717 F.Supp. 84, 94-95 (S.D.N.Y.), aff'd, 891 F.2d 446 (2d Cir.1989), cert. denied, 495 U.S. 957, 110 S.Ct. 2561, 109 L.Ed.2d 744 (1990). Accordingly, Southview's physical taking claim was properly dismissed. 6