Richard Lewis Katzin, et al. v. United States

A divided panel of the Federal Circuit reversed the trial court’s decision that a taking resulted from the Government’s communications to prospective purchasers that the United States owns title to a portion of the Petitioners’ land—making the land unsalable. As a result, Petitioners lost a $4 million sale in 2006, and other prospective purchasers have refused to make offers to buy the property. The Federal Circuit’s announced per se rule that the Government’s erroneous claim of title cannot be a taking even if it makes the land unsalable and deprives the land of all value is contrary to the precedents of this Court, and guts the Fifth Amendment of all meaning. As Judge Newman’s states in her dissent: Despite the Katzins’ registered deed, the United States asserts that the government, not the Katzins, owns the entirety of the 10.01 acre peninsula, as well as the government’s undisputed ownership of a 2.25 acre gun mount site at an unknown location. The government has so advised potential purchasers and has eliminated all possibility of sale of the land. That is what this case is about, for the right to sell one’s property is a fundamental tenet of ownership. See App., infra, 25a. The questions presented are as follows: 1. Whether the Government can claim title to privately owned land and actively work to make that property unsaleable, without triggering the Fifth Amendment’s obligation to pay just compensation for a taking.