Court Opinion

ID: 9463197
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:00:38.094201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:58.797320
License: Public Domain

KILKENNY, Circuit Judge
(concurring and dissenting):
I am in agreement with substantially everything which is said by the majority, except that language which remands to the district court to focus its attention “ . more on that type of marketable public debt security which constitutes a direct obligation of the United States Treasury having a duration approximating the period during which the deficiency was unpaid.”
I am convinced that the district court considered adequate relevant evidence in its determination of what rate of interest was constitutionally required by the just compensation provisions. I cannot say that its finding is clearly erroneous. FRCivP 52(a).
Moreover, I do not agree that the “Seizure of land under the Declaration of Taking Act is an act by the United States by which it substitutes for ownership of land, together with the risks attendant thereto, an obligation of the United States which is free of the risk of default.” [Emphasis supplied.] This analysis is fundamentally unsound: What the United States substitutes for the ownership of land is its obligation to pay the owner just compensation for the property taken. Undue emphasis, as here, upon the monetary returns from obligations of the United States Treasury is not warranted.
I would affirm the judgment of the lower court in all respects.