Opinion ID: 2585381
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Armstrong Test

Text: Justice Black said in Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49, 80 S.Ct. 1563, 4 L.Ed.2d 1554 (1960), The Fifth Amendment's guarantee that private property shall not be taken for a public use without just compensation was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole. The Supreme Court has lately referred to this statement as an expression of the Fifth Amendment's concern[] for proportionality. City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687, 702, 119 S.Ct. 1624, 143 L.Ed.2d 882 (1999). Thus, the question of whether a regulation effects a taking necessarily requires a weighing of private and public interests. Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 261, 100 S.Ct. 2138, 65 L.Ed.2d 106 (1980). In the balance here, is the park owners' wish to sell the park free of the right of first refusal the statute gives the park tenants balanced against the devastating economic and social consequences of the sale of a mobile home park on its tenants. Justice Black used the phrase in all fairness and justice. What fairness or justice is there in the majority's assertion that a month's delay in a park owner's ability to sell is more important than the fates of the park tenants? Park tenants who because of the sale become homeless create new burdens for the people of Washington. To avoid these harsh results, the Legislature voted unanimously to give the park tenants a chance to remain in their homes by buying the park. The Legislature imposed a minimal obligation on the park ownerto forbear for 30 days to give the tenants a chance to buy the park. That minimal obligation, compared to the severe effects and costs to society of displacing tenants, leads to the conclusion that the statute does not require the park owners to bear a burden out of proportion to the burden that ought to be borne by society as a whole.