Court Opinion

ID: 9660653
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:17:54.709555+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:21.123417
License: Public Domain

MADDEN, Judge
(dissenting in part).
I do not believe that the traditional right of the State to regulate or prohibit the hunting of wild game or fowl is so broad that a privately owned farm can, in effect, be converted into a game preserve without compensating the owner for the loss of the use of his farm.
Whether or not a “taking,” in the constitutional sense, has occurred is often a question of degree. The occasional flight of planes, or overflowing of a stream, does not impose so serious a burden upon land as to be regarded as the taking of a servitude in the land. Nor does the annoyance and damage caused by animals or wild fowl, in ordinary circumstances. But if the circumstances are so extraordinary, as they are alleged to be in this case, that the accomplishment of the public purpose of protecting the wild fowl results in the destruction of a private owner’s use of his land, I think the public treasury must compensate the owner. The Fifth Amendment deals with realities, and the alleged deprivation here is as real as if the land had been covered with water or enclosed by a fence.