Knick v. Township of Scott
The Court ruled that a property owner can sue in federal court under Section 1983 as soon as the government takes property without paying for it, without first suing for compensation in state court.
The decision overturns a 1985 precedent that had trapped many property owners in a legal catch-22, unable to win compensation in either state or federal court, and it reopens the federal courthouse doors to takings claims against state and local governments nationwide.
“The federal claim dies aborning.”
Describing the catch-22 property owners faced under the old rule requiring state court litigation first.
How it got here: A federal district court dismissed Knick's takings claim under Williamson County; the Third Circuit affirmed; the Supreme Court granted certiorari to reconsider that precedent.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Rose Mary Knick owns 90 rural acres in Scott Township, Pennsylvania, including a small family graveyard. After a township ordinance required all cemeteries to be open to the public during daylight hours, an officer found grave markers on her land and cited her for violating it. Knick sued in state court arguing the ordinance took her property, but did not seek compensation through Pennsylvania's inverse condemnation procedure.
The question before the Court
If a local government takes someone's property, can the owner go straight to federal court, or must she first sue for compensation in state court?
Why it matters
Property owners who believe a state or local government has taken their land or restricted its use without paying them can now sue immediately in federal court, without the expense and delay of first pursuing a state-court lawsuit. Local governments should expect more takings claims filed directly in federal court, and federal judges will now decide more state-law property questions.
What changes now
The Third Circuit's judgment is vacated, and the case goes back to the lower courts to proceed under the new rule, meaning Knick may now pursue her federal takings claim without first suing in state court. More broadly, property owners nationwide can now bring uncompensated-takings claims directly in federal court, and federal judges will increasingly have to resolve underlying state-law property questions that arise in those suits. This is a final merits ruling, not a temporary order.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Knick's cemetery ordinance actually amounts to a taking, or whether Pennsylvania common law already required public access to burial grounds — those questions go back to the lower courts. The ruling also does not require governments to pay compensation in advance of a taking; it only lets owners sue immediately if compensation isn't later available.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed the Fifth Amendment is violated the instant an uncompensated taking occurs, rejecting the government's 'sue me' theory that regulatory programs should be immune from challenge as long as compensation is theoretically available afterward. He stressed that just compensation is a prerequisite to the government's power to take property, not merely a backstop, while agreeing that ordinary remedial principles, including tort law, still apply.
Dissent — Justice Kagan
“So when the government "takes and pays," it is not violating the Constitution at all.”Explaining the dissent's view that a takings violation requires both a taking and a denial of compensation.
Justice Kagan argued that a takings violation has always required two elements—a taking and a subsequent denial of compensation—so no constitutional violation exists until a government actually withholds payment through its compensation procedure. She contended the majority ignored over a century of consistent precedent, would turn ordinary regulators into constitutional violators, and would flood federal courts with complex state-law property questions better resolved by state courts. She also argued stare decisis strongly favored keeping Williamson County, especially since Congress could have fixed the preclusion problem itself.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court held that a Fifth Amendment taking is complete, and violates the Constitution, the moment the government takes property without paying for it — the right to compensation is 'self-executing' and does not depend on any later state-court proceeding.
- It traced this understanding to earlier cases like Jacobs v. United States and First English, which held that a property owner's constitutional right to compensation arises at the time of the taking, regardless of what post-taking remedies exist.
- The Court found that its own 1985 decision in Williamson County had wrongly treated a state compensation procedure as a precondition to having any constitutional claim at all, rather than merely as a remedy for a violation that had already occurred.
- It explained that Williamson County's reasoning rested on a misreading of Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co. and an unpersuasive analogy to the due-process case Parratt v. Taylor, neither of which actually supported treating state litigation as mandatory before a federal takings suit.
- Applying the Court's stare decisis factors — quality of reasoning, workability, consistency with other decisions, and reliance — the Court concluded that Williamson County's rule was poorly reasoned, had become unworkable because of the 'preclusion trap' created by San Remo Hotel, and created no legitimate reliance interests worth protecting.
- Because the government's later provision of a compensation remedy addresses the violation but does not prevent it from having occurred, the Court concluded that property owners may sue under Section 1983 in federal court immediately upon an uncompensated taking.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Overrules Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank (473 U. S. 172)
Overruled the requirement that property owners sue for compensation in state court before bringing a federal takings claim.
Reaffirms First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles (482 U. S. 304)
Relied on as confirming that the right to compensation for a taking arises automatically at the time of the taking.
Distinguishes Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co. (467 U. S. 986)
Said this case did not actually support treating state compensation procedures as a precondition to a federal takings claim.