Opinion ID: 769735
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Continuing Claim

Text: 19 In addition to arguing that the accrual of their claims should be delayed, the plaintiffs assert that the time-bar should be limited to exclude only damage that occurred greater than six years prior to the filing of the claim. According to the plaintiffs, a taking by a gradual process is a continuing claim, so that as each additional quantum of land is taken, a new cause of action arises. To hold otherwise, plaintiffs argue, would essentially give the government the right to erode the plaintiffs' remaining property with impunity. Even the Court of Federal Claims, which rejected the plaintiffs' argument, noted the conceptual difficulty of a rule that would hold the plaintiffs' time-barred from suing for land that has yet to be taken. See Boling, 41 Fed. Cl. at 692. Nevertheless, we agree with the Court of Federal Claims and decline the plaintiffs' invitation to extend the continuing claims doctrine into environmental takings. 20 The continuing claims doctrine has been applied when the government owes a continuing duty to the plaintiffs. In such cases, each time the government breaches that duty, a new cause of action arises. See Hatter v. United States, 203 F.3d 795, 797-98 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (en banc). The continuing claims doctrine, however, does not apply in cases where a single governmental action causes a series of deleterious effects, even though those effects may extend long after the initial governmental breach. For example, in Fallini, the landowners claimed a governmental taking based on a statute that required them to allow wild horses to drink water that was kept on their property. Invoking the continuing claims doctrine, the landowners argued that each drink taken by a horse on their property amounted to a new taking. See Fallini, 56 F.3d at 1383. The court rejected that argument, holding that the takings claim accrued when the relevant statute was enacted, because this was the sole governmental action that arguably breached a duty owed to the plaintiffs. See id.; see also Ariande Fin. Servs. v. United States, 133 F.3d 874 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (holding that the continuing claims doctrine did not apply in a case involving the breach of a twenty-year contract); Applegate, 25 F.3d at 1583 (stating that a taking by a gradual physical process does not invoke the continuing claim doctrine). 21 Similarly, this case does not fall within the continuing claims doctrine because each additional quantum of erosion damage is not a new breach by the government. While erosion is certainly a process that gradually increases the property damage over time, there is only a single governmental act that breaches a duty to the plaintiffs--allowing the erosion from the waterway to substantially encroach the plaintiffs' property. Once this has occurred, the permanence of the taking is manifest, its progressive nature is apparent, and its ultimate extent is reasonably foreseeable. In short, the increased damages that occur as more of the land is eroded are not the result of new and independent breaches by the government, but are merely the natural and foreseeable consequences of the government's single breach. The continuing claims doctrine is inapplicable in such a situation.