DeVillier v. Texas
The Supreme Court unanimously declined to decide whether the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause gives property owners the inherent right to sue the government for compensation, finding that Texas law already provides a path to bring that claim.
The ruling means the more than 120 Texas landowners whose property was repeatedly flooded after the State built a highway median barrier can pursue their compensation claims using Texas's own courts — but the bigger constitutional question remains unanswered for a future case.
How it got here: DeVillier originally sued in Texas state court; Texas removed the cases to federal court where they were consolidated; the District Court denied Texas's motion to dismiss; the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding the Takings Clause provides no right of action against a state; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Richard DeVillier and more than 120 other Texas property owners north of Interstate 10 between Houston and Beaumont had their land repeatedly flooded after Texas installed a roughly three-foot barrier along the highway median to protect the south side of the road during storms. During Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and Tropical Storm Imelda in 2019, the barrier worked as planned — but it pushed floodwaters north onto the owners' property, damaging homes, businesses, crops, livestock, and personal belongings. The owners argued the State effectively took their property and owed them compensation.
The question before the Court
When the government floods private land by building a highway barrier, can property owners sue for compensation directly under the Constitution — without any separate law giving them the right to sue?
The Court's answer
The Court did not answer the big constitutional question — it sidestepped it. The question assumed that property owners had no other legal path to seek compensation, but that assumption was wrong here. Texas law already provides an inverse-condemnation cause of action (a legal claim for compensation when the government takes or damages private property without formally doing so) that covers claims under both the Texas Constitution and the federal Takings Clause. Because a state-law path exists, the Court found no need to decide whether the Fifth Amendment creates its own built-in right to sue.
The property owners can return to the lower courts, amend their complaint to proceed under Texas's state-law cause of action, and pursue their compensation claims that way. The question of whether property owners could sue directly under the Constitution in a state that provides no such remedy remains open.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Property owners whose land is taken or damaged by the government may need to look to state law — not the federal Constitution directly — to find the legal vehicle for their claim. States with no adequate state-law remedy for takings could force that unresolved constitutional question in a future case, potentially affecting how and where government-damage claims can be filed nationwide.
What changes now
The case goes back to the lower courts so DeVillier and the other property owners can amend their complaint to bring their takings claims through Texas's state-law inverse-condemnation cause of action. Texas agreed it would not oppose that amendment. Their underlying flood-damage claims remain alive. The larger question — whether the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause creates a direct right to sue when state law provides no remedy at all — was left unresolved and awaits a future case.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly left open whether the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause creates a standalone right to sue the government for compensation in cases where state law provides no adequate remedy. This decision resolves nothing about that scenario — it applies only where, as in Texas, state law already offers a path for takings claims.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment guarantees that private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation. The Court has previously held that this right is 'self-executing' — meaning property owners acquire an immediate right to compensation the moment a taking occurs. But being owed compensation is a separate question from having a legal tool (a 'cause of action') to go to court and collect it.
- Constitutional rights generally do not come packaged with their own built-in right to sue. Instead, they are typically enforced either as a defense in other litigation or through a separate statute that creates a lawsuit vehicle — the most common example being 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing suits against state and local officials for constitutional violations. That law, however, does not authorize suits against a state itself.
- DeVillier argued that the Takings Clause is an exception — that its 'self-executing' character means it creates its own cause of action by force of the Constitution alone, without needing a statute. He pointed to First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles and other cases. But the Court found that none of those cases actually decided whether the Takings Clause provides a standalone right to sue; First English itself proceeded on a state-law cause of action.
- Because the question presented assumed that DeVillier had no other legal avenue to pursue his claim, the Court said it would be premature to answer it without first confirming that premise was actually true. The Court noted that states are themselves bound by the Constitution and that the constitutional system trusts states to provide remedies for constitutional violations.
- Texas, at oral argument, confirmed that its state-law inverse-condemnation cause of action allows property owners to bring claims based on both the Texas Constitution and the federal Takings Clause — and that it would not oppose the owners amending their complaint to use that vehicle. This meant the premise of the question (no available cause of action) was simply wrong on these facts.
- Because Texas law already provides a workable path to seek just compensation, the Court vacated the Fifth Circuit's ruling and sent the case back so the property owners can amend their complaint and proceed under Texas's state-law cause of action.