Opinion ID: 3051722
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Self-Execution

Text: [4] The Supreme Court has long recognized that the just compensation clause of the Fifth Amendment is selfexecuting: “ ‘the right to recover just compensation . . . [i]s guaranteed by the Constitution’ ” and “ ‘[s]tatutory recognition [i]s not necessary.’ ” First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304, 315 (1987) (emphasis omitted) (quoting Jacobs v. United States, 290 U.S. 13, 16 (1933)). From this fact, the Venture argues that the constitutional right to compensation overcomes the state’s Eleventh Amendment immunity. We reject this contention; we conclude that the constitutionally grounded self-executing nature of the Takings Clause does not alter the conventional application of the Eleventh Amendment. [5] The Supreme Court’s reverse condemnation cases have not spoken directly to our question. Neither First English, a suit against a county, nor City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687 (1999), a suit against a municipality, controls the Eleventh Amendment analysis, for both cases involved state entities not protected by the Amendment. See, e.g., Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391, 401 & n.19 (1979) (“[T]he Court has consistently refused to construe the Amendment to afford protection to political subdivisions such as counties and municipalities, even though such entities exer- 5 At least two cases decided since Broughton contained dicta suggesting that it was an open question in this circuit whether reverse condemnation actions could be brought against an unconsenting State in federal court. See Spoklie v. Montana, 411 F.3d 1051, 1058 (9th Cir. 2005); Taylor v. Westly, 402 F.3d 924, 936 (9th Cir. 2005). 4168 SEVEN UP PETE VENTURE v. SCHWEITZER cise a ‘slice of state power.’ ”).6 In sum, First English expounds the self-executing character of the Takings Clause and the resulting obligation by the states to provide a specific remedy for takings in their own courts, but does not directly address its interplay with the Eleventh Amendment. See Richard H. Seamon, The Asymmetry of State Sovereign Immunity, 76 Wash. L. Rev. 1067, 1072-80 (2001). This is the issue to which we now turn.