Opinion ID: 211579
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Illegal Exaction Claim

Text: 38 On April 17, 2003, the Court of Federal Claims issued an opinion and order dismissing appellants' illegal exaction claim for lack of jurisdiction. See Norman I, 56 Fed.Cl. at 266-67, 270. Appellants' amended complaint claimed, as an alternative to their takings claim, that the 1991 Delineation effected an exaction of their property in violation of Public Law 102-104, which forbade the expenditure of any funds by the Corps to delineate wetlands under the 1989 Federal Manual. Id. at 266. 39 We note at the outset that both appellants' amended complaint and their briefs appear to conflate two distinct types of exactions. Paragraph 40 of the complaint alleges that [b]y reason of the 1999 permit requirement ... plaintiffs were required to dedicate for public use in perpetuity 220.85 acres of plaintiffs' land in violation of Pub.L. 102-104 and the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This sentence appears to allege the kind of exaction at issue in takings cases like Dolan and Nollan —where the government uses a permitting process to obtain from a landowner concessions which, if the government accomplished them directly, would constitute takings. Although such claims are phrased, in part, in terms of exactions, they are clearly Fifth Amendment takings claims. These claims were not dismissed by the trial court's order of April 17, 2003, and are discussed in the sections on takings above. 40 Paragraph 41 of the amended complaint, however, appears to allege something different. It reads, [a]s a proximate result of the acts of Defendant United States, plaintiffs also have incurred substantial expenses, including approximately $2 million in service fees incurred in assisting the Corps with its delineation and $1 million in construction costs for mitigation projects. The complaint describes these expenses as illegal exactions. 41 An illegal exaction, as that term is generally used, involves money that was improperly paid, exacted, or taken from the claimant in contravention of the Constitution, a statute, or a regulation. Eastport S.S. Corp. v. United States, 178 Ct.Cl. 599, 372 F.2d 1002, 1007 (1967). The classic illegal exaction claim is a tax refund suit alleging that taxes have been improperly collected or withheld by the government. See, e.g., City of Alexandria v. United States, 737 F.2d 1022, 1028 (Fed.Cir.1984). An illegal exaction involves a deprivation of property without due process of law, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. See, e.g., Casa de Cambio Comdiv, 291 F.3d at 1363. The Court of Federal Claims ordinarily lacks jurisdiction over due process claims under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491, see Murray v. United States, 817 F.2d 1580, 1582 (Fed.Cir.1987), but has been held to have jurisdiction over illegal exaction claims when the exaction is based upon an asserted statutory power. Aerolineas Argentinas v. United States, 77 F.3d 1564, 1573 (Fed.Cir.1996); see also Eastport, 372 F.2d at 1008 (Court of Claims had jurisdiction over exaction based upon a power supposedly conferred by a statute). To invoke Tucker Act jurisdiction over an illegal exaction claim, a claimant must demonstrate that the statute or provision causing the exaction itself provides, either expressly or by necessary implication, that the remedy for its violation entails a return of money unlawfully exacted. Cyprus Amax Coal Co. v. United States, 205 F.3d 1369, 1373 (Fed.Cir.2000) (concluding that the Tucker Act provided jurisdiction over an illegal exaction claim based upon the Export Clause of the Constitution because the language of that clause leads to the ineluctable conclusion that the clause provides a cause of action with a monetary remedy). 42 The Normans claim that the 1991 Delineation exacted from them their land, in contravention of Public Law 102-104, which prohibited the expenditure of public funds for delineations using the Corps' 1989 Wetland Delineation Manual. They claimed below that funds were expended on delineation of [the disputed property] as late as October 30, 1991, when the Corps claims the 1991 delineation became final. Norman I, 56 Fed.Cl. at 265. Before this court, they argue that because the 1991 Delineation used the 1989 Manual and expended funds in doing so, and because the 1991 Delineation led foreseeably and predictably to the loss of the 220.85 acres, that exaction occurred in violation of a federal statute and therefore came within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims under Casa de Cambio Comdiv and similar cases. 43 The trial court rejected that argument, concluding that even if the 1991 Delineation violated Public Law 102-104, the Court of Federal Claims lacked jurisdiction over the supposed exaction because the land was not exacted  due to [a] misapplication of the statute as required by Aerolineas, Casa de Cambio Comdiv and Eastport. See Norman I, 56 Fed.Cl. at 266 (emphasis original). The trial court ruled that Public Law 102-104 was not the instrument through which plaintiffs' property was exacted[;] it was merely an appropriations act, and, as such, plaintiffs cannot maintain an illegal exaction claim based exclusively on violation of this act. Id. 44 Appellants argue that it was precisely through the Corps' illegal 1991 re-delineation of the Normans' property ... that the Corps gained jurisdiction over an additional 70 acres of wetland and, as the price of allowing the Normans to regain the use of that 70 acres, exacted from the Normans 220.85 acres of `mitigation' lands. This is a reiteration of appellants' argument, rejected above, that the 1991 Delineation somehow itself effected the taking of the 220.85 acres set aside in the 1999 Permit. The facts simply do not support that contention. Appellants' assertion that the loss of the 220.85 acres was the foreseeable and predictable result of redelineation under the 1989 manual, such that the 220.85 acres were exacted as a direct result of the application of Public Law 104-102, as required for Tucker Act jurisdiction over exaction claims, strains the meanings of the words foreseeable, predictable, and directly beyond all recognition. See Casa de Cambio Comdiv v. United States, 48 Fed.Cl. 137, 145 (2000), aff'd, 291 F.3d 1356 (Fed.Cir.2002). As we concluded in rejecting appellants' takings claims, the causal connection between the 1991 Delineation and the alleged exaction is simply too attenuated to bear the weight appellants place upon it. 45 This court has addressed this causal attenuation problem in exaction cases on several occasions. We have held, for example, that a plaintiff has a claim for an illegal exaction only where the government [action] has direct and substantial impact on the plaintiff asserting the claim. Casa de Cambio Comdiv, 291 F.3d at 1364; see also Ont. Power Generation, Inc. v. United States, 369 F.3d 1298, 1303 (Fed.Cir.2004) (The government is considered to have illegally exacted money from a plaintiff only where the government's actions ... have a direct and substantial impact on the plaintiff.) (internal quotations omitted). The Normans argue that the 1991 Delineation had a direct or substantial effect on them, but they cannot reasonably maintain that it directly caused the actual exaction alleged here, which resulted from the 1999 Permit. Although these cases involved somewhat different factual circumstances, they are sufficiently analogous to support our decision here. 46 Assuming arguendo that illegal exaction principles are ever applicable to actions against the United States for just compensation for an alleged taking of real property, we agree with the trial court that misapplication of Public Law No. 02-104 did not directly result in an exaction ... so as to satisfy the jurisdictional prerequisite for maintaining an illegal exaction claim under the Tucker Act. Norman I, 56 Fed.Cl. at 266. In addition, we conclude that Public Law 102-104 does not, by its terms or by necessary implication, provide a cause of action with a monetary remedy for its violation. Cf. Cyprus Amax Coal, 205 F.3d at 1373 (concluding that the Tucker Act provided jurisdiction over an illegal exaction claim based upon the Export Clause of the Constitution because the language of that clause leads to the ineluctable conclusion that the clause provides a cause of action with a monetary remedy). We affirm the trial court's order dismissing appellants' illegal exaction claim.