Opinion ID: 4568765
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The state’s nuisance defense

Text: {¶ 51} Under Lucas, even if a governmental regulation completely deprives an owner of all economically beneficial use of its property, just compensation is not required if the government can show that background principles of property and nuisance law proscribe the owner’s use of the property. Lucas, 505 U.S. at 1029, 1017, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798. To take an example from Lucas, the corporate owner of a nuclear generating plant [would not be entitled to just compensation] when it is directed to remove all improvements from its land upon discovery that the plant sits astride an earthquake fault. Such regulatory action may well have the effect of eliminating the land’s only economically productive use, but it does not proscribe a productive use that was previously permissible under relevant property and nuisance principles. Id. at 1029-1030. Courts have interpreted Lucas’s background-principles-ofproperty-and-nuisance-law passage as creating a defense that the government can raise in a regulatory-takings action. See, e.g., Rith Energy, Inc. v. United States, 247 F.3d 1355, 1361 (Fed.Cir.2001); Palm Beach Isles Assocs. v. United States, 231 F.3d 1354, 1357 (Fed.Cir.2000). We must consider whether, as AWMS argues, the state waived its nuisance defense. {¶ 52} “Unlike lack of subject matter jurisdiction, other affirmative defenses can be waived.” State ex rel. Jones v. Suster, 84 Ohio St.3d 70, 77, 701 N.E.2d 1002 (1998). “[I]t is well settled that ‘[a] party who fails to raise an argument in the court below waives his or her right to raise it here.’ ” (Second 19 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO bracket sic.) Niskanen v. Giant Eagle, Inc., 122 Ohio St.3d 486, 2009-Ohio-3626, 912 N.E.2d 595, ¶ 34, quoting State ex rel. Zollner v. Indus. Comm., 66 Ohio St.3d 276, 278, 611 N.E.2d 830 (1993). {¶ 53} AWMS argues that the state waived its nuisance defense because the state did not raise it in the court of appeals. The state’s second amended answer to AWMS’s complaint clearly sets forth the defense, but whether the state did so in its summary-judgment motion presents a closer question. {¶ 54} In its motion for summary judgment, the state briefly analogized the facts of this case to the hypothetical used by the court in Lucas in which the government could raise a nuisance defense in a situation in which a nuclear-powergeneration plant sits astride an earthquake fault. In making that analogy, the state claimed that AWMS’s facility was located near “a previously unknown earthquake fault.” {¶ 55} At first blush, it would appear that the state did not waive its nuisance defense. The problem, however, is that Lucas requires a government-defendant to ground its nuisance defense in principles of its state’s property and nuisance law. Lucas, 505 U.S. at 1029-1030, 1017, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798. Here, the state did not ground its nuisance defense in principles of Ohio property and nuisance law. We have held that waiver will apply when a litigant supplies no argument “regarding whether the relevant case law, applied to the facts of th[e] case, justifies a decision in [the litigant’s] favor.” Util. Serv. Partners, Inc. v. Pub. Util. Comm., 124 Ohio St.3d 284, 2009-Ohio-6764, 921 N.E.2d 1038, ¶ 53. We find that principle dispositive here and hold that the state waived its nuisance defense for purposes of this appeal. {¶ 56} In summary, we conclude that there is a genuine issue of material fact concerning whether the state’s suspension of operations at well #2 deprived AWMS of all economically beneficial use of its leasehold. We further conclude that the state waived its nuisance defense. We therefore reverse the Eleventh 20 January Term, 2020 District’s judgment granting summary judgment to the state on AWMS’s totaltakings claim. On remand, the court of appeals must weigh the parties’ evidence relating to AWMS’s total-takings claim and disregard the state’s nuisance defense.