Opinion ID: 2722123
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: R egulatory Taking

Text: Big John’s also argues that the Act amounts to a regulatory taking because it damages its property rights without granting compensation. Article I, § 21, of the Nebraska Constitution provides: “The property of no person shall be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation therefor.” [15] Payment of just compensation pursuant to article I, § 21, applies only to vested property rights.56 Big John’s claims that its vested right was “its ability to operate a premises that allowed smoking”57 and that the Act took away this vested right without compensating it. [16-20] The Legislature is free to create and abolish rights so long as no vested right is disturbed.58 The type of right that “‘vests’” can be described generally as “‘an interest which it is proper for the state to recognize and protect and of which the individual may not be deprived arbitrarily without injustice.’”59 To be considered a vested right, the right must be “‘fixed, settled, absolute, and not contingent upon anything.’”60 With respect to property, a right is considered to be “‘vested’” if it involves “‘an immediate fixed right of present or future enjoyment and an immediate right of present enjoyment, or a present fixed right of future enjoyment.’”61 A vested right “‘must be 55 See Lincoln Federal Labor Union v. Northwestern Iron and Metal Co., 149 Neb. 507, 31 N.W. 2d 477 (1948). 56 Tracy v. City of Deshler, 253 Neb. 170, 568 N.W.2d 903 (1997). 57 Brief for appellee on cross-appeal at 45. 58 United States Cold Storage v. City of La Vista, 285 Neb. 579, 831 N.W.2d 23 (2013). 59 Id. at 592, 831 N.W.2d at 33, quoting 16B Am. Jur. 2d Constitutional Law § 746 (2009). 60 Id. 61 Id. Nebraska Advance Sheets BIG JOHN’S BILLIARDS v. STATE 955 Cite as 288 Neb. 938 something more than a mere expectation based upon an anticipated continuance of the existing law; it must have become a title, legal or equitable, to the present or future enjoyment of property.’”62 A vested right can be created by statute.63 But it is presumed that a statutory scheme is not intended to create vested rights, and a party claiming otherwise must overcome that presumption.64 Simply stated, there is no vested right at issue here. The only “right” Big John’s had to allow its customers to smoke was created by statute—the prior version of the Act, under which smoking in billiards parlors was regulated but not prohibited. That Act created nothing more than a mere expectation based upon continuance of the existing law and did not create a vested right. There was no regulatory taking here as a matter of law.