Opinion ID: 1981302
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 21

Heading: Is Empire's property private?

Text: As the majority opinion points out, Empire differs in many ways from a typical private charity. One difference is that Empire has had a more intimate relationship with, and has derived more benefit from, the state government than most private, nonprofit entities. The State, recognizing the important purposes that Empire has served, has repeatedly intervened to keep it afloat, allowing it to collect from hospitals at favorable rates, giving it a large outright subsidy, and imposing limits on Empire's competitors ( see majority op at 340-341). The majority does not assert, however, that these facts make Empire into a public or quasi-public entity, or that they lessen the protection afforded to Empire's property under the Takings Clauses. Thus, for the majority, it seems that Empire's previous relationship with the State is simply background that, while it may make the taking of Empire's property by the State seem less offensive, is not directly relevant to the constitutional issue. I agree that prior acts of government favoritism to Empire are constitutionally irrelevant; they do not make Empire's property any less private. I know of no authority holding that the private nature of property is destroyed or diluted because of previous government benefits its owner has received, and I think it would be unwise to create, for Takings Clause purposes, a special category of government dependents whose property is not really their own. The State did not have to help Empire in the ways it did, and it could have attached more conditions to the help it gave; it could, for example, have required that the hundred million dollar cash subsidy given in 1993 be paid back if Empire were to dissolve. But the Legislature imposed no such requirement, and it is not free to say to Empire, in effect, I am taking your property now because I saved your life back then. There may be farmers in this country who have been able to remain in business for years or decades because of government subsidies  but their farms are still their farms, and the government cannot take them without paying just compensation. The majority mentions some other factors that distinguish Empire from an ordinary private charity, but these seem to me more clearly irrelevant. Surely Empire is not less a private entity because it was, for federal tax purposes, a social welfare organization under Internal Revenue Code (26 USC) § 501 (c) (4), rather than a charitable organization under section 501 (c) (3) (majority op at 339, 356). And the fact that Congress stripped Empire of its tax exemption because it found its activities too commercial (majority op at 340) weighs, if anything, on the side of making Empire that much more private. In short, I conclude that Empire's property is private, and entitled to the same constitutional protection from uncompensated taking as any other private property.