Lynn Lumbard, et al. v. City of Ann Arbor, Michigan

In Knick v. Township of Scott, 588 U.S. __, 139 S. Ct. 2162, 2019 U.S. LEXIS 4197 (U.S., June 21, 2019), this Court expressly overruled the state court exhaustion requirement in Williamson County Regional Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (“the Williamson exhaustion requirement”), thereby enabling takings claimants to go directly to federal court to advance their Fifth Amendment claims. Because the petitioner in Knick did not exhaust her state court remedy and, instead, challenged the dismissal of her federal court action, she was not burdened with an adverse state court decision when this Court heard her appeal. The court in Knick, therefore, was not called upon to extend its holding to litigants, like the Petitioners in this case, who dutifully exhausted their state court remedies and, as a result, were caught in the preclusion trap set by San Remo Hotel, L.P, v. City and County of San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323 (2005). Given this Court’s clear and unequivocal endorsement of the right of takings claimants to pursue their Fifth Amendment claims in federal court without regard to any available state court remedy, should Petitioners’ Complaint, seeking just compensation under the Fifth Amendment, this Court’s decision in Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419 (1982) and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for the permanent physical occupation of their homes, be reinstated?