United States v. Causby
The Supreme Court ruled that repeated, low-altitude military flights just 83 feet above a North Carolina family's home and chicken farm could count as a constitutional "taking" of property, even though no plane ever touched the ground.
The decision rejected the government's argument that any flight above the minimum safe altitude set by federal aviation law was automatically immune from a takings claim, holding instead that a landowner keeps some control over the airspace immediately above the land. The Court sent the case back for more precise findings about exactly what kind of easement was taken.
“It is the owner's loss, not the taker's gain, which is the measure of the value of the property taken.”
Explaining how compensation for a taking should be calculated.
How it got here: The Court of Claims found a taking and awarded damages, with one judge dissenting; the United States sought Supreme Court review by certiorari.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A North Carolina couple owned a small farm near an airport, using outbuildings to raise chickens. After the United States began operating military bombers and fighters from a leased runway in 1942, planes repeatedly passed close over their house and barn, killing chickens through fright, disturbing sleep, and lighting up the property at night, destroying their chicken business.
The question before the Court
Did the government take a family's property, in the constitutional sense, by flying military planes just above their chicken farm at low altitude?
Why it matters
The ruling means property owners near airports and military bases can seek compensation when low-flying aircraft make their land unusable or substantially less valuable, even without a physical invasion of the ground itself. It set a framework — still cited today — for deciding when overhead activity crosses the line from mere annoyance into a compensable taking of land.
What changes now
The case was sent back to the Court of Claims to make specific findings on whether the easement taken was permanent or temporary, since that distinction affects how much compensation the family is owed. The underlying holding — that low, frequent flights can constitute a taking — stood as the final ruling on that legal question, even though the compensation amount remained unresolved pending further fact-finding below.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide the outer boundary of how much airspace above land belongs to the owner, nor whether ordinary flights that merely cause noise or inconvenience without seriously interfering with land use are compensable. It also left open, on remand, whether the specific easement taken here was temporary or permanent.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Black
Justice Black argued this was, at most, a tort claim over noise and glare, not a constitutional taking, and that the government had not consented to be sued for torts in the Court of Claims. He warned that treating noise and light disturbances as takings improperly locks in constitutional limits on a fast-changing field that Congress, not courts, should regulate through legislation and administrative rules.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first rejected the old common-law idea that a landowner owns everything in the sky above their land forever upward, since that would make ordinary air travel a constant trespass and clog the public airways Congress had declared open to all.
- It then distinguished flights within the public airspace from flights so low and frequent that they amount to a direct invasion of the immediate space above the land, reasoning that a landowner must have some exclusive control of the airspace right above the ground or basic uses like building a house or planting trees would become impossible.
- The Court found that federal aviation law's 'navigable airspace' begins only at the government's prescribed minimum safe altitudes (500 to 1,000 feet for most aircraft), not at the lower glide-path altitude used for landing, so the 83-foot flights here fell below the zone Congress had opened to the public.
- Applying the distinction between a mere consequential nuisance (like noise from a nearby railroad, which is not compensable) and a direct invasion of the space above the land (which is), the Court found the frequent, close-range flights were a direct invasion because they destroyed the chicken business and caused a real drop in the property's value.
- Because the invasion was direct and the damage substantial, the Court concluded a servitude, or easement, over the land had been taken, triggering the constitutional requirement of just compensation.
- The Court held that the Court of Claims' findings did not specify whether this easement was temporary or permanent, so it could not yet determine whether the compensation awarded was correct.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Richards v. Washington Terminal Co. (233 U.S. 546)
Distinguished as mere incidental nuisance damages, unlike the direct invasion of airspace at issue here.
Reaffirms Portsmouth Co. v. United States (260 U.S. 327)
Relied on as establishing that firing guns or otherwise directly invading land can create a compensable servitude.