Opinion ID: 200574
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: State Action Requirement

Text: 12 Here, if Rhode Island provides an adequate process for obtaining compensation, and resort to that process holds out some realistic promise of yielding just compensation, Pascoag may not seek compensation in federal court for an alleged taking without first resorting to the state process. Gilbert v. City of Cambridge, 932 F.2d 51, 63 (1st Cir.1991); accord Williamson County, 473 U.S. at 195, 105 S.Ct. 3108 ([I]f a state provides an adequate procedure for seeking just compensation, the property owner cannot claim a violation of the Just Compensation Clause until it has used the procedure and been denied just compensation.). `[B]ecause the Fifth Amendment 4 proscribes takings without just compensation, no constitutional violation occurs until just compensation has been denied.' Gilbert, 932 F.2d at 63 (quoting Williamson County, 473 U.S. at 194 n. 13, 105 S.Ct. 3108); accord Gamble v. Eau Claire County, 5 F.3d 285, 286 (7th Cir.1993) (stating that a litigant must exhaust[] his remedies for obtaining a compensation award or equivalent relief from the state because the right protected by the duty of just compensation is not to the land or its use but merely to the market value of what is taken). Thus, the state's action ... is not `complete' until the state fails to provide adequate compensation for the taking. Williamson County, 473 U.S. at 195, 105 S.Ct. 3108. 13 Pascoag did not seek compensation through the state court. Pascoag's burden is to show that one of the narrow exceptions to the state action requirement applies. The Supreme Court in Williamson County identified two exceptions — where state remedies were unavailable or inadequate. 473 U.S. at 196-97, 105 S.Ct. 3108; accord Deniz v. Municipality of Guaynabo, 285 F.3d 142, 146 (1st Cir.2002); Gilbert, 932 F.2d at 65. Some courts have also recognized an exception where state remedies are futile. See, e.g., Daniels, 306 F.3d at 456.
14 First, we consider whether adequate state remedies were available to Pascoag. Courts have made exceptions to Williamson County's state action requirement when state law did not recognize the taking that occurred, or did not permit the relief required to make the plaintiff whole. See, e.g., Daniels, 306 F.3d at 456-57 (finding an exception to the state action requirement because plaintiffs did not have a definable pecuniary loss and state inverse condemnation proceedings were limited to monetary damages); Hall, 833 F.2d at 1281 n. 28 (finding a state court process inadequate because at the time, no action for inverse condemnation based on a regulatory taking could be brought under California law); see also Suitum v. Tahoe Reg'l Planning Agency, 520 U.S. 725, 734 n. 8, 117 S.Ct. 1659, 137 L.Ed.2d 980 (1997) (Ordinarily, a plaintiff must seek compensation through state inverse condemnation proceedings before initiating a takings suit in federal court, unless the state does not provide adequate remedies for obtaining compensation.). 15 Pascoag cannot show that Rhode Island's remedies were inadequate or unavailable. The Rhode Island Constitution prohibits the taking of private property for public use without just compensation and Rhode Island state courts have long allowed recovery through suits for inverse condemnation. Annicelli v. Town of South Kingstown, 463 A.2d 133, 139 (R.I.1983); E & J Inc. v. Redevelopment Agency of Woonsocket, 122 R.I. 288, 405 A.2d 1187, 1189 (1979) (Governmental action short of actual acquisition of property may be a constructive taking or an inverse condemnation....); cf. Caldarone v. Rhode Island, 98 R.I. 7, 199 A.2d 303, 304 (1964) (assessing damages for land taken by state); see also Harris v. Mo. Conservation Comm'n, 790 F.2d 678, 680-81 (8th Cir.1986) (finding constitutional provision provided adequate remedy). Thus, Rhode Island has an adequate process available to address Pascoag's suit for just compensation.
16 In its decision regarding the property rights of the state and Pascoag, the Rhode Island Supreme Court discussed Pascoag's potential takings claims in dicta: 17 [E]ven if the state's conduct from 1965 to 1975 had been unlawful and amounted to an improper taking of the lake owner's property without paying just compensation, and even if the lake owner's property had not been taken in the constitutional sense until the prescriptive period ended in 1975 — issues that we have no need to decide in this case — the corporation and its predecessors failed to assert any takings claim in a timely manner. Thus, they are barred from asserting them now under any statute of limitations that possibly could apply to such claims.... 18 Pascoag State Decision, 774 A.2d at 838. Pascoag argues that because this language suggests that Pascoag's claim is time-barred, state court remedies are futile. 19 Again, Pascoag fails to carry its burden to show that an exception to the state action requirement applies. Pascoag's futility argument is simply that it is now time-barred from making state law claims. If the futility rule were read this broadly it would swallow the general rule of state remedy exhaustion. Like the other exceptions, the futility exception must consider the landowner's available state remedies at the time of the taking. See Williamson County, 473 U.S. at 194, 105 S.Ct. 3108 ([A]ll that is required [by the Fifth Amendment] is that a reasonable, certain and adequate provision for obtaining compensation exist at the time of the taking.) (quotation omitted). There is no evidence that the state would not have been receptive to Pascoag's claim had it been brought at the time the property was taken (regardless of whether that was in 1965 or 1975 — a determination we address below). Pascoag offers no compelling explanation for not using state procedures earlier, 6 and we find that state court remedies are not futile. 20