Court Opinion

ID: 9890045
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-12 00:00:35.770131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:45.947723
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-40644     Document: 00516928161         Page: 1    Date Filed: 10/11/2023

           United States Court of Appeals
                for the Fifth Circuit                                United States Court of Appeals
                                                                              Fifth Circuit

                               ____________                                 FILED
                                                                     October 11, 2023
                                No. 22-40644                           Lyle W. Cayce
                               ____________                                 Clerk

   Vicki Baker,

                                                            Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                      versus

   City of McKinney, Texas,

                                           Defendant—Appellant.
                  ______________________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Eastern District of Texas
                            USDC No. 4:21-CV-176
                  ______________________________

   Before Smith, Higginson, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
   Stephen A. Higginson, Circuit Judge:
         When an armed fugitive held a 15-year-old girl hostage inside plaintiff-
   appellee Vicki Baker’s home, City of McKinney (the “City”) police officers
   employed armored vehicles, explosives, and toxic-gas grenades to resolve the
   situation. The parties agree the officers only did what was necessary in an
   active emergency. However, Baker’s home suffered severe damage, much of
   her personal property was destroyed, and the City refused to provide com-
   pensation.
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                                    No. 22-40644

          Baker brought suit in federal court alleging a violation of the Takings
   Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which
   states that private property shall not “be taken for public use, without just
   compensation.” The district court held that as a matter of law, the City vio-
   lated the Takings Clause when it refused to compensate Baker for the damage
   and destruction of her property. The City timely appeals.
          We conclude that, as a matter of history and precedent, the Takings
   Clause does not require compensation for damaged or destroyed property
   when it was objectively necessary for officers to damage or destroy that prop-
   erty in an active emergency to prevent imminent harm to persons. Baker has
   maintained that the officers’ actions were precisely that: necessary, in light
   of an active emergency, to prevent imminent harm to the hostage child, to
   the officers who responded on the scene, and to others in her residential com-
   munity. Accordingly, and despite our sympathy for Ms. Baker, on whom mis-
   fortune fell at no fault of her own, we REVERSE.
                                          I.
          Baker was a long-time resident of McKinney, Texas when she made
   plans to sell her house and retire. She had already moved to Montana at the
   time of the events in question, July 25, 2020, and her adult daughter, Deanna
   Cook, was staying in Baker’s McKinney home to prepare it for final sale.
   Baker’s dog was also present at the home.
          On the morning of July 25, Cook saw a Facebook post that Wesley
   Little was on the run with a 15-year-old female “runaway.” Cook recognized
   Little because he “did some work inside of [Baker’s] home more than a year
   before the incident occurred.” Baker had fired him at that time because of
   comments that made Cook uncomfortable.
          That same morning, McKinney police spotted Little driving a
   Corvette with the 15-year-old girl. Officers began pursuit, but “[i]t was a very

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   fast Corvette,” and Little evaded police. He arrived at the Baker residence
   shortly thereafter with the 15-year-old girl and knocked on the door. Cook
   answered, and Little asked to come in and to put his car in the garage. Cook
   recognized the girl and, though frightened, formulated a plan to help: She
   agreed to let Little into the house, but then told him, falsely, that she had to
   go to the supermarket. Once away from the house, she called Baker and
   described the situation, and Baker called the police.
          City police arrived soon after and, in the words of one of the officers,
   “set up perimeter on the home and essentially tr[ied] to secure it. And what
   we[] [were] doing [was] for the well-being of not only the 15-year-old girl, but
   the community as a whole.” Officers employed a BearCat, which is an
   “armored personnel carrier,” and engaged in “loud hailing” using an
   intercom system. Soon after, Little released the girl and she exited the house.
   The girl told police that “he’s in the ceiling; she had pulled down the attic so
   he could get up there; they had a lot of long guns, some pistols; and that he
   was obviously high on methamphetamine.”
          Little somehow “communicated to” police that he “had terminal
   cancer, wasn’t going back to prison, knew he was going to die, was going to
   shoot it out with the police.” Police proceeded to use explosive devices, the
   BearCat, a T-Rex (similar to the BearCat), toxic gas grenades, and a drone to
   try to resolve the situation. After some time, the drone was able to reach a
   vantage point to see that Little had taken his own life.
          It is undisputed that police acted unimpeachably that day, and no
   party in this case has ever suggested otherwise. At trial, Baker’s attorney
   made it a point on direct examination to underline that “there was some
   really good police work here,” it “was a successful operation,” “[e]veryone
   followed procedure,” and “[e]veryone did what they were supposed to do,”
   along with other affirmations that the officers acted irreproachably. Her

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   attorney reiterated that the severe damage done to Baker’s home “was
   necessary. No issue there.” And in briefing, Baker makes clear she does not
   dispute that “it was necessary to destroy her house.” In light of the way
   Baker has argued this case, we do not ourselves evaluate whether the damage
   to her home was “necessary”; we grant the parties’ shared contention that
   it was.
             Nevertheless, the damage to Baker’s home was severe. As the district
   court explained, quoting Baker’s motion for summary judgment, “[m]uch of
   the damage went beyond what could be captured visually.” Specifically,
             The explosions left Baker’s dog permanently blind and deaf.
             The toxic gas that permeated the House required the services
             of a HAZMAT remediation team. Appliances and fabrics were
             irreparable. Ceiling fans, plumbing, floors (hard surfaces as
             well as carpet), and bricks needed to be replaced—in addition
             to the windows, blinds, fence, front door, and garage door.
             Essentially all of the personal property in the House was
             destroyed, including an antique doll collection left to Baker by
             her mother. In total, the damage . . . was approximately
             $50,000.
             Baker filed a claim for property damage with the City, but the City
   replied in a letter that it was denying the claim in its entirety because “there
   is no liability on the part of the City or any of its employees.” Baker’s
   insurance “would not cover any damage caused by the City’s police,
   including the structural damage.” Baker received numerous donations from
   businesses and others who had heard of her plight. She has maintained that if
   she should ever receive compensation from the City, she would pay back
   everyone who volunteered to help her.
             On March 3, 2021, Baker filed suit against the City in federal court in
   the Eastern District of Texas for violations of the takings clauses of the
   United States and Texas Constitutions. She alleged liability under the Fifth

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   Amendment directly because it “is self-executing” under Knick v. Township
   of Scott, 139 S. Ct. 2162, 2171 (2019), and she also alleged liability under the
   Fifth Amendment via the vehicle of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She contended the
   district court has jurisdiction over her federal constitutional claims under the
   federal-question statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1331, and supplemental jurisdiction
   over the state takings claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1367.
          The City filed a motion to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil
   Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). It argued that Baker has no cause of action
   under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and that the City did not take
   Baker’s property under the Fifth Amendment; that Baker’s complaint failed
   to sufficiently allege Monell liability under § 1983; 1 that the district court lacks
   supplemental jurisdiction over the Texas Constitution claim; and that the
   Texas Constitution claim fails because “it is a sheer attempt to allege tort
   recovery in a claim wearing takings claim clothing.” The district court denied
   the City’s motion in full.
          Baker filed a motion for partial summary judgment on her claims that
   the City is liable under the Fifth Amendment and the Texas Constitution.
   The district court granted it, holding that the City is liable directly under the
   Fifth Amendment and the Takings Clause of the Texas Constitution. The
   district court also held that “because the Fifth Amendment is self-executing,
   Baker’s claim under the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause is not dependent
   upon the § 1983 vessel. Accordingly, the Court need not determine whether
   Baker established an official policy under Monell.” (footnote omitted). But
   the district court explained in a subsequent order,
          because Baker also brought a claim under §1983, the Court
          considered this claim as well, ultimately finding an issue of fact

          _____________________
          1
              See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of N.Y., 436 U.S. 658 (1978).

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          that the Court declined to resolve at summary judgment.
          Further, the Court did not determine the amount of just
          compensation to which Baker is entitled. Accordingly,
          damages and the City’s liability under § 1983 are issues that
          have been reserved for jury determination at trial.
          At a pre-trial conference, the City “lodge[d] an objection on the
   Monell issues,” claiming they have not “been adequately pled or presented
   in this case” and that the only thing left to try is the question of damages. The
   district court rejected this argument, stating that § 1983 “most certainly was
   pled. Without question, it’s pled in the alternative.”
          At that same conference, the district court also noted that the City
   made an offer to Baker for “the full amount of damages” to settle the case.
   Baker refused because, her attorney said, “she wanted a change in policy or
   some assurance that people in her position in the future wouldn’t be
   subjected to similar denial of compensation, and the City wasn’t willing to
   offer that so that was why she proceeded.”
          Two weeks before trial, Baker filed a motion in limine to exclude
   evidence of donations or insurance proceeds she received to help repair her
   home. She cited the collateral source rule, which is a fixture of tort law, and
   equitable considerations. The district court agreed with Baker and granted
   the motion in full.
          Trial was held from June 20 to 22, 2022. On June 21, the City
   submitted a motion for judgment as a matter of law along with a supplemental
   brief arguing that (1) Baker did not adequately plead a plausible § 1983 claim
   against the City and (2) Baker failed to show that her alleged constitutional
   injury was caused by an official city policy or custom, or by a city policymaker.
   The district court denied the motion.

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           The jury found that the City was acting under color of state law when
   it refused to compensate Baker for her lost property and that the City’s
   refusal proximately caused Baker’s damages of $44,555.76 for her home and
   $15,100.83 for her personal property. Because the district court had already
   found that the Fifth Amendment is self-executing, that the City’s refusal to
   compensate Baker was a violation of the Fifth Amendment, and that the
   City’s refusal was a violation of the Texas Constitution, Baker was given the
   option to elect whether to pursue the judgment under the Fifth Amendment
   directly, under § 1983, or under the Texas Constitution. Baker chose § 1983.
           The City submitted a motion for a new trial on July 20, 2022. The
   court denied it on August 26, 2022. The City timely filed a notice of appeal
   on September 23, 2022, challenging all the district court’s unfavorable
   decisions and orders stretching back to its denial of the City’s 12(b)(1) and
   12(b)(6) motions.
                                                 II.
           We begin with jurisdiction. The City contends that under our court’s
   decision in Devillier v. State, 53 F.4th 904 (5th Cir. 2023), cert. granted, 92
   U.S.L.W. 3063 (U.S. Sept. 29, 2023) (No. 22-913), federal courts lack
   jurisdiction over Baker’s Fifth Amendment takings claim. This contention
   fails foremost because Devillier made no jurisdictional holding. See id. at 904.
   The district court was therefore correct to hold that it had federal-question
   jurisdiction in this case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. 2
           This court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

           _____________________
           2
              The City also contends that the district court lacked supplemental jurisdiction
   over Baker’s Texas Constitution claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367. This contention fails
   because it is explicitly predicated on the claim that the district court lacked federal-question
   jurisdiction.

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                                           III.
          We turn now to the merits of Baker’s Fifth Amendment claim.
                                            a.
          The City invites our court to adopt a broad rule: because Baker’s
   property was damaged or destroyed pursuant to “the exercise of the City’s
   police powers,” there has been no compensable taking under the Fifth
   Amendment. We decline.
          First, the City’s broad rule runs afoul of our precedent. As we
   explained in John Corp. v. City of Houston:
          Appellants argue strenuously that their claims do not include a
          takings claim because they nowhere allege that the City used its
          power of eminent domain to take property for public use.
          Instead, Appellants assert that the city relied on its police
          powers to destroy their property. Such a distinction between
          the use of police powers and of eminent domain power,
          however, cannot carry the day. The Supreme Court’s entire
          “regulatory takings” law is premised on the notion that a city’s
          exercise of its police powers can go too far, and if it does, there has
          been a taking.
   214 F.3d 573, 578 (5th Cir. 2000) (emphasis added). Indeed, the mere fact
   that Baker’s property has been damaged or destroyed pursuant to the City’s
   police power cannot decide this case.
          Second, twentieth-century Supreme Court precedents cast doubt on
   the City’s proposed rule. As the Court said in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal
   Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1014 (1992), if “the uses of private property were
   subject to unbridled, uncompensated qualification under the police power,
   ‘the natural tendency of human nature would be to extend the qualification
   more and more until at last private property disappeared.’” (quoting Pa. Coal
   Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 415 (1922) (“But that cannot be accomplished in

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   this way under the Constitution of the United States.”)). Similarly, in Loretto
   v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419, 425 (1982), the Court
   noted that a given regulation might be “within the State’s police power. . . .
   It is a separate question, however, whether an otherwise valid regulation so
   frustrates property rights that compensation must be paid.”
          Third, the Court has noted that takings cases “should be assessed
   with reference to the ‘particular circumstances of each case,’ and not by
   resorting to blanket exclusionary rules.” Ark. Game & Fish Comm’n v. United
   States, 568 U.S. 23, 37 (2012) (quoting United States v. Cent. Eureka Mining
   Co., 357 U.S. 155, 168 (1958)). The City’s proposed rule is an exceptionally
   broad exclusionary rule. And it is broader than any rule necessary to decide
   this case.
          Fourth, the Court has increasingly intimated that history and
   tradition, including historical precedents, are of central importance when
   determining the meaning of the Takings Clause. See Tyler v. Hennepin
   County, 598 U.S. 631, 637-44 (2023) (determining the applicability of the
   Takings Clause from “[h]istory and precedent” reaching back to the Magna
   Carta); Horne v. Department of Agriculture, 576 U.S. 350, 357-61 (2015); see
   also Murr v. Wisconsin, 582 U.S. 383, 419 (2017) (Thomas, J., dissenting) (“In
   my view, it would be desirable for us to take a fresh look at our regulatory
   takings jurisprudence, to see whether it can be grounded in the original public
   meaning of the Takings Clause . . . .”).
          The City’s arguments for its broad rule are ahistorical. It relies
   primarily on recent precedents from our sister circuits, especially Lech v.
   Jackson, 791 F. App’x 711 (10th Cir. 2019) (unpublished). See also Johnson v.
   Manitowoc Cnty., 635 F.3d 331 (7th Cir. 2011); AmeriSource Corp. v. United
   States, 525 F.3d 1149 (Fed Cir. 2008). The City is correct that these
   precedents have endorsed the rule the City now invites our court to adopt.

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   But with respect to our sister circuits, their opinions do not rely on history,
   tradition, or historical precedent, and moreover, the rule they adopt is
   inconsistent with our court’s precedent. Compare Lech, 791 F. App’x at 717
   (“[We] hold that when the state acts pursuant to its police power, rather than
   the power of eminent domain, its actions do not constitute a taking for
   purposes of the Takings Clause.”) with John Corp., 214 F.3d at 578 (“[A]
   city’s exercise of its police powers can go too far, and if it does, there has been
   a taking.”).
          Our own analysis of history and precedent, undertaken below, further
   explains why we decline to adopt the City’s broad rule. But first, we turn to
   Baker’s arguments.
                                           b.
          Much of Baker’s briefing is devoted to explaining why we should
   reject any categorical “police power” exclusion from Takings Clause
   liability. In the absence of such an exclusion, she claims, “like every other
   time the government’s agents destroy property, a Takings analysis applies.”
   And “[i]n this case, that analysis is straightforward: The damage was
   intentional and foreseeable, it was for the public use, and no recognized
   exception to liability applies.”
          Baker attends more closely to historical precedent than does the City.
   She specifically relies on Pumpelly v. Green Bay & Mississippi Canal Co., 80
   U.S. (11 Wall.) 166, 181 (1871), for the proposition that “where real estate is
   actually invaded . . . so as to effectually destroy or impair its usefulness, it is
   a taking, within the meaning of the Constitution.” Pumpelly was an inverse
   condemnation case in the context of a dam, which Wisconsin had legislated
   to be built, that flooded the plaintiff’s property. In that case, the Supreme
   Court said,

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          It would be a very curious and unsatisfactory result, if in
          construing a provision of constitutional law, always understood
          to have been adopted for protection and security to the rights
          of the individual as against the government, and which has
          received the commendation of jurists, statesmen, and
          commentators as placing the just principles of the common law
          on that subject beyond the power of ordinary legislation to
          change or control them, it shall be held that if the government
          refrains from the absolute conversion of real property to the
          uses of the public it can destroy its value entirely, can inflict
          irreparable and permanent injury to any extent, can, in effect,
          subject it to total destruction without making any
          compensation, because, in the narrowest sense of that word, it
          is not taken for the public use. Such a construction would
          pervert the constitutional provision into a restriction upon the
          rights of the citizen, as those rights stood at the common law,
          instead of the government, and make it an authority for
          invasion of private right under the pretext of the public good,
          which had no warrant in the laws or practices of our ancestors.
   Id. at 177–78.
          But while we agree with Baker that Pumpelly further undercuts the
   City’s proposed rule, it provides only limited help for Baker herself. To
   repeat, Pumpelly was a flooding case that dealt with a dam constructed
   pursuant to Wisconsin legislation. The facts of Pumpelly are facially distinct
   from those at bar, where officers damaged or destroyed Baker’s property by
   necessity during an active emergency—an emergency that began as a hostage
   situation involving a child and evolved into a potential shootout in a
   residential neighborhood with a heavily armed fugitive.
          What Baker needs, in other words, is historical or contemporary
   authority that involves facts closer to those at bar and where the petitioner
   succeeded under the Takings Clause. But Baker provides no such authority.

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                                                 c.
           When we turn to “[h]istory and precedent,” Tyler, 598 U.S. at 639,
   we find that historically oriented legal scholarship has widely converged on
   the thesis that a “necessity” or “emergency” privilege has existed in
   Takings Clause jurisprudence since the Founding. 3

           _____________________
           3
              See, e.g., William J. Novak, Common Regulation: Legal Origins of State Power in
   America, 45 Hastings L.J. 1061, 1092 (1994) (“American courts and commentators
   consistently referred to a line of English cases making it ‘well settled at common law’ that
   in cases of calamity (e.g., fire, pestilence, or war) individual interests, rights, or injuries
   would not inhibit the preservation of the common weal. Thus, private houses could be
   pulled down or bulwarks raised on private property without compensation when the safety
   and security of the many depended upon it.”); Shelley Ross Saxer, Necessity Exceptions to
   Takings, 44 U. Haw. L. Rev. 60, 67 (2022) (“[T]he common law defense of public necessity
   bars the rights of property owners to obtain recourse or compensation when government
   destroys private property for the public good.”); Brian Angelo Lee, Emergency Takings, 114
   Mich. L. Rev. 391, 391, 393 (2015) (“Remarkably, however, courts have repeatedly held
   that if the government destroys property to address an emergency, then a ‘necessity
   exception’ relieves the government of any obligation to compensate the owner of the
   property that was sacrificed for the public good. . . . Indeed, courts and scholars have said
   that [this] principle has been well-established law for centuries.”); Susan S. Kuo, Disaster
   Tradeoffs: The Doubtful Case for Public Necessity, 54 B.C. L. Rev. 127, 127 (2013) (“When
   government takes private property for a public purpose, the Fifth Amendment of the U.S.
   Constitution requires just compensation. Courts, however, have long recognized an
   exception to takings law for the destruction of private property when necessary to prevent
   a public disaster.”); Derek T. Muller, “As Much Upon Tradition as Upon Principle”: A
   Critique of the Privilege of Necessity Destruction Under the Fifth Amendment, 82 Notre
   Dame L. Rev. 481, 483–85 (2006) (describing the “privilege of necessity destruction”
   which reaches to back to the common law and allows that “the government may destroy
   property in times of necessity during law enforcement, such as burning down a home to
   capture a barricaded criminal” without providing compensation); Note, Necessity Takings
   in the Era of Climate Change, 136 Harv. L. Rev. 952, 953 (2023) (“Since the earliest days
   of the Republic, U.S. courts have sanctioned violations of private property rights without
   compensation under conditions of public necessity. The quintessential application of this
   doctrine has been in the destruction of private property to create a firebreak . . . . But the
   principle . . . . has expanded beyond classical paradigms . . . to include activities [such as]
   law enforcement.”).

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          For example, in Respublica v. Sparhawk, 1 U.S. 357 (Penn. 1788), the
   Pennsylvania Supreme Court considered a claim for compensation for 227
   barrels of flour that had been moved by the government to a depot and later
   lost to the British. The court asked whether “by reason, by the law of nations,
   and by precedents analogous to the subject before us,” compensation could
   be awarded. The court answered no, on the ground that “the rights of
   necessity, form a part of our law.” Id. at 362. It explained,
          Of this principle, there are many striking illustrations. If a road
          be out of repair, a passenger may lawfully go through a private
          enclosure 2 Black. Com. 36. So, if a man is assaulted, he may
          fly through another’s close. 5 Bac. Abr. 173. In time of war, bul-
          warks may be built on private ground. Dyer. 8. Brook. trespass.
          213. 5 Bac. Abr. 175. . . . Houses may be razed to prevent the
          spreading of fire, because for the public good. Dyer. 36. Rud. L.
          and E. 312. See Puff. lib. 2. c. 6. sec. 8. Hutch. Mqr. Philos. lib.
          2. c. 16. We find, indeed, a memorable instance of folly rec-
          orded in the 3 Vol. of Clarendon’s History, where it is men-
          tioned, that the Lord Mayor of London, in 1666, when that city
          was on fire, would not give directions for, or consent to, the
          pulling down forty wooden houses, or to the removing the fur-
          niture, &c. belonging to the Lawyers of the Temple, then on
          the Circuit, for fear he should be answerable for a trespass; and
          in consequence of this conduct half that great city was burnt.
   Id. at 363. Given this principle of necessity, the court explained, “there is
   nothing in the circumstances of the case, which, we think, entitles the Appel-
   lant to a compensation . . . .” Id.
          Sparhawk is a 1788 case. It is therefore directly on point to
   understanding the common law rights to just compensation against which the
   Fifth Amendment Takings Clause was ratified in 1791. And it articulates what
   appears to have been a guiding rationale for this common law necessity
   exception: the fear that if the state risks liability for the damage or destruction

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   of property during a public emergency, then the state may not be so quick to
   damage or destroy it, and such hesitancy risks catastrophe.
           The idea that public emergency allows the government to damage or
   destroy property without compensation remained prominent after Sparhawk.
   For example, in 1822, a committee of the 17th Congress considered a petition
   for compensation from a Louisianan whose property was inundated due to
   American military action during the British invasion of Louisiana in 1814. See
   Property Destroyed During the Invasion of Louisiana by the British in 1814–
   ’15, 17th Cong., 1st Session, No. 587 (1822). 4 As the congressional committee
   described, “the enemy had landed near the city of New Orleans, [and] in
   order to prevent him from bringing up his cannon and other ordnance to the
   city, General Morgan, commanding the Louisiana militia, caused the levee to
   be cut through at or near the plantation of the petitioner.” Id. “In
   consequence, the petitioner suffered great losses in the destruction of his”
   property, to the tune of $19,250. Id. The congressional committee stated
           that this injury done the petitioner was done in the necessary
           operations of war, and that the United States are not liable for
           the individual losses sustained by that inundation; and
           therefore [the committee] recommend[s] the adoption of the
           following resolution: Resolved, That the prayer of the petitioner
           ought not to be granted.
   Id.
           Cases closer to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment
   demonstrate the longevity of the necessity privilege. 5 For example, in Field v.

           _____________________
           4
             Available  at   https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&file-
   Name=036/llsp036.db&Page=835.
           5
              See also N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 2163 (2022)
   (Barrett, J., concurring) (noting the “‘ongoing scholarly debate on whether courts should

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   City of Des Moines, 39 Iowa 575, 577–78 (1874), a plaintiff sought to recover
   against the city of Des Moines after it razed his house to prevent further
   spreading of a fire. The Iowa Supreme Court explained,
           In Dillon on Municipal Corporations, Sec. 756, the learned
           author states the common law doctrine as clearly and
           succinctly as it is any where to be found. He says: “The rights
           of private property, sacred as the law regards them, are yet
           subordinate to the higher demands of the public welfare. Salus
           populi suprema est lex. Upon this principle, in cases of imminent
           and urgent public necessity, any individual or municipal officer may
           raze or demolish houses and other combustible structures in a city
           or compact town, to prevent the spreading of an extensive
           conflagration. This he may do independently of statute, and
           without responsibility to the owner for the damages he thereby
           sustains.” The ground of exemption from liability in such cases
           is that of necessity, and if property be destroyed, in such cases,
           without any apparent and reasonable necessity, the doers of the
           act will be held responsible.
   Id. (emphases in original). Much the same analysis is found in numerous
   cases from the mid-nineteenth century. See, e.g., McDonald v. City of Red
   Wing, 13 Minn. 38, 40 (1868) (listing cases); The Mayor, &C. of N.Y. v. Rufus
   L. Lord, 18 Wend. 126, 132–33 (N.Y. 1837).
           And when this same issue reached the Supreme Court in Bowditch v.
   City of Boston in 1879, only eleven years after the ratification of the
   Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court explained:
         At the common law every one had the right to destroy real and
         personal property, in cases of actual necessity, to prevent the
         spreading of a fire, and there was no responsibility on the part

           _____________________
   primarily rely on the prevailing understanding of an individual right when the Fourteenth
   Amendment was ratified in 1868’ or when the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791”).

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          of such destroyer, and no remedy for the owner. In the case of
          the Prerogative, 12 Rep. 13, it is said: ‘For the Commonwealth
          a man shall suffer damage, as for saving a city or town a house
          shall be plucked down if the next one be on fire; and a thing for
          the Commonwealth every man may do without being liable to
          an action.’ There are many other cases besides that of fire,—
          some of them involving the destruction of life itself,—where
          the same rule is applied. ‘The rights of necessity are a part of
          the law.’ Respublica v. Sparhawk, 1 Dall. 357, 362. See also
          Mouse’s Case, 12 Rep. 63; 15 Vin., tit. Necessity, sect. 8; 4 T.
          R. 794; 1 Zab. (N. J.) 248; 3 id. 591; 25 Wend. (N. Y.) 173; 2
          Den. (N. Y.) 461.
                  In these cases the common law adopts the principle of
          the natural law, and finds the right and the justification in the
          same imperative necessity. Burlem. 145, sect. 6; id. 159, c. 5,
          sects. 24–29; Puffendorf, B. 2, c. 6.
   101 U.S. 16, 18–19 (1879).
          Bowditch was a case about Massachusetts law, but its lessons have
   permeated the Federal Takings Clause context. Justice Holmes, for exam-
   ple, said:
          The general rule at least is that while property may be regulated
          to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recog-
          nized as a taking. It may be doubted how far exceptional cases,
          like the blowing up of a house to stop a conflagration, go—and
          if they go beyond the general rule, whether they do not stand
          as much upon tradition as upon principle. Bowditch v. Boston,
          101 U. S. 16, 25 L. Ed. 980.
   Pa. Coal Co., 260 U.S. at 415–16 (1922).
          Indeed, whatever we might think about the principle underlying the
   necessity privilege, its basis in history and tradition is longstanding and long
   recognized. This recognition has extended to more recent precedents, as

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                                     No. 22-40644

   well. See, e.g., United States v. Caltex, 344 U.S. 149, 154-55 (1952) (“[T]he
   common law ha[s] long recognized that in times of imminent peril—such as
   when fire threatened a whole community—the sovereign could, with immun-
   ity, destroy the property of a few that the property of many and the lives of
   many more could be saved. . . . [And the] terse language of the Fifth Amend-
   ment is no comprehensive promise that the United States will make whole all
   who suffer from every ravage and burden of war.”); Lucas, 505 U.S. at 1029
   n.16 (“[The State may be absolved] of liability for the destruction of ‘real and
   personal property, in cases of actual necessity, to prevent the spreading of a
   fire’ or to forestall other grave threats to the lives and property of others.”
   (citing Bowditch, 101 U.S. at 18–19 and United States v. Pac. R.R., 120 U.S.
   227, 238–39 (1887))); see also Steele v. City of Houston, 603 S.W.2d 786, 792
   (Tex. 1980) (“The defendant City of Houston may defend its actions by
   proof of a great public necessity. . . . Uncompensated destruction of property
   has been occasionally justified by reason of war, riot, pestilence or other great
   public calamity.”).
                                          d.
           In sum, history, tradition, and historical precedent reaching back to
   the Founding supports the existence of a necessity exception to the Takings
   Clause. Today, we make no attempt to define the bounds of this exception.
   We hold only that in this case, the Takings Clause does not require compen-
   sation for Baker’s damaged or destroyed property because, as Baker herself
   claims, it was objectively necessary for officers to damage or destroy her
   property in an active emergency to prevent imminent harm to persons. We
   need not determine whether the necessity exception extends further than
   this.

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                                          No. 22-40644

                                                e.
           We conclude by acknowledging two considerations that favor Baker’s
   position, despite all we have said.
           First, while scholars have converged on the empirical, historical thesis
   that a necessity exception to the Takings Clause has existed since the Found-
   ing, they have also tended to converge on the view that it wrongs individuals
   like Baker. 6 Second, and closely related, the Supreme Court has often stated
   that “[t]he Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that private property shall not be
   taken for a public use without just compensation was designed to bar Gov-
   ernment from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all
   fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.” Armstrong v.
   United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49 (1960), quoted in Tyler, 598 U.S. at 647. This
   statement’s relevance to Baker, who is faultless but must “alone” bear the
   burdens of a misfortune that might have befallen anyone, is manifest. As a
   lower court, however, it is not for us to decide that fairness and justice trump
   historical precedent, particularly Supreme Court precedent, where it has
   long recognized a necessity exception that excludes those like Baker from the
   protection of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. Such a decision would
   be for the Supreme Court alone.
                                               IV.
           Because Baker opted to pursue relief under § 1983, we do not reach
   whether she succeeds under the Texas Constitution.

           _____________________
           6
             In particular, see Kuo, Disaster Tradeoffs: The Doubtful Case for Public Necessity,
   54 B.C. L. Rev. 127 (2013), and Muller, “As Much Upon Tradition as Upon Principle”: A
   Critique of the Privilege of Necessity Destruction Under the Fifth Amendment, 82 Notre
   Dame L. Rev. 481 (2006).

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                                  No. 22-40644

         We REVERSE the district court’s summary judgment order finding
   that the City’s damaging or destroying Baker’s house and personal property
   was a compensable taking under the Fifth Amendment. We therefore
   VACATE the § 1983 judgment in her favor and REMAND for further
   proceedings.

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