Opinion ID: 853628
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Takings Law

Text: The Fifth Amendment says, [N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. U.S. Const. amend. V. [3] While there can be little doubt that the framers intended that the amendment apply only to physical acquisition or invasion of property by the national government, [4] the Takings Clause later became incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment and thereby made applicable to the States. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R.R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226, 17 S.Ct. 581, 41 L.Ed. 979 (1897). Later still, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that a taking might occur even where there was no acquisition. Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 415, 43 S.Ct. 158, 67 L.Ed. 322 (1922) ([W]hile property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.) Still, aside from acquisition or invasion most government regulation of property does not offend the Takings Clause. See, e.g., Herrington v. Sonoma County, 834 F.2d 1488 (9th Cir.1987) (disapproval of development plans not a taking), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1090, 109 S.Ct. 1557, 103 L.Ed.2d 860 (1989); Major Media of the Southeast, Inc. v. City of Raleigh, 792 F.2d 1269 (4th Cir.1986) (requiring billboard removal five and a half years after adoption of ordinance not a taking), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1102, 107 S.Ct. 1334, 94 L.Ed.2d 185 (1987); Landmark Land Co. v. City of Denver, 728 P.2d 1281, 1287 (Colo.1986) (it must be shown that the `ordinance precludes use of [the] property for any reasonable purpose'; building limitations intended to promote view of mountains not a taking), appeal dismissed sub nom., Harsh Inv. Corp. v. City of Denver, 483 U.S. 1001, 107 S.Ct. 3222, 97 L.Ed.2d 729 (1987). The Supreme Court has held that the government may, consistent with the Takings Clause, affect property values by regulation without incurring an obligation to pay under the full scope of the State's police power. This may be done when the regulation proscribes harmful or noxious uses of property, although the proscribed use need not rise to this level. See Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1022, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992). As Justice Scalia observed in writing for the Court in Lucas, where the state reasonably concludes that the health, safety, morals, or general welfare would be promoted by prohibiting particular contemplated uses of land, compensation need not accompany prohibition. Id. (quoting Penn Central Transp. Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104, 125, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978)). Moreover, a landowner is not entitled to unlimited access to abutting property at all points along a highway, nor does a taking occur where ingress and egress is made more circuitous and difficult. State v. Ensley, 240 Ind. 472, 489, 164 N.E.2d 342, 350 (1960); see also Jenkins v. Board of County Comm'rs, 698 N.E.2d 1268, 1271 (Ind. Ct.App.1998), trans. denied.