Opinion ID: 2321964
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The inverse condemnation claim

Text: Appellants allege a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for inverse condemnation. Inverse condemnation is a shorthand description of the manner in which a landowner recovers just compensation for a taking of his property when condemnation proceedings have not been instituted. See Agins, 447 U.S. at 258, 100 S.Ct. 2138 (quotation and citation omitted); First English Evangelical Lutheran Church, 482 U.S. at 316, 107 S.Ct. 2378. Appellants do not state a claim for inverse condemnation under federal constitutional law or under District law. For the reasons stated in the preceding section, appellants do not state a claim under the U.S. Constitution for a taking, and to the extent their inverse condemnation claim is based on the federal constitutional law, it fails. Appellants argue that their inverse condemnation cause of action has a basis in District of Columbia law independent of federal constitutional law. District law is not the basis of the cause of action pled in the complaint, which invokes only § 1983, and § 1983, by its explicit terms, creates a cause of action only for a deprivation of rights secured by the U.S. Constitution. [7] Even if the complaint pled a cause of action under D.C. law, the result would be the same because no D.C. statute provides a broader remedy than the Just Compensation Clause affords. Appellants correctly contend that the U.S. Constitution does not preclude the District from deciding to pay compensation when the Fifth Amendment does not require it. But to state a claim, appellants must identify an affirmative statutory basis for courts to award damages against the District and to overcome its sovereign immunity. [8] Appellants cite nothing in the language or legislative history of the D.C. eminent domain statute or any other statute that the District intended to provide a broader remedy than the Constitution does. Although appellants are correct that we have never decided whether District law affords a broader remedy, earlier inverse condemnation cases applied Fifth Amendment principles in deciding whether a taking has occurred and what compensation is just. E.g., D.C. Redevelopment Land Agency v. Dowdey, 618 A.2d 153, 164 (D.C.1992). [9] We have refused to award in a condemnation case more compensation than the Fifth Amendment requires because, [h]ad the Council of the District of Columbia intended that the District [provide more than constitutionally just compensation], its intent would be obvious on the face of the condemnation statute, or at least in its legislative history.... Mamo v. District of Columbia, 934 A.2d 376, 384 (D.C.2007). Moreover, allowing property owners to obtain just compensation in circumstances not required by the Just Compensation Clause could have undesirable effects. As explained in Section II.A.1.c above, Just Compensation Clause jurisprudence strikes a balance between, on the one hand, providing a remedy to property owners singled out for unequal and burdensome treatment and, on the other, encouraging local governments to make timely announcements of their intent to take property and avoiding judicial interference with the management of public works projects by the executive branch. If the District should afford a broader remedy than the Just Compensation Clause, the Council of the District of Columbia, not the courts, should make that decision.