{"id":191,"date":"2020-08-18T21:20:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T21:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=191"},"modified":"2023-11-29T21:30:53","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T21:30:53","slug":"no-regulatory-taking-despite-temporary-flooding-since-the-governments-action-avoided-more-harm-than-it-caused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2020\/08\/18\/no-regulatory-taking-despite-temporary-flooding-since-the-governments-action-avoided-more-harm-than-it-caused\/","title":{"rendered":"No regulatory taking despite temporary flooding since the government\u2019s action avoided more harm than it caused"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cafc.uscourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/opinions-orders\/19-1678.OPINION.6-19-2020_1606570.pdf\" class=\"mtli_attachment mtli_pdf\">Alford v. United States<\/a>, 961 F.3d 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2020), owners complained that the Army Corps of Engineers took their properties by temporarily flooding a nearby lake, knowing it would damage the plaintiffs\u2019 property but doing so to avoid even greater damage to their property from a breach of the levee that was almost certain to occur if the Corps had not acted and which would have resulted in the complete destruction of plaintiffs\u2019 properties. The Federal Circuit applied the \u201crelative benefits\u201d doctrine and reversed the Claims Court\u2019s finding of a regulatory taking. It found that the plaintiffs\u2019 properties \u201cwould have been far worse off and suffered more serious damage if the government had not acted\u201d and, for that reason, the government\u2019s action protected, rather than took, property.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/takings\/\" rel=\"tag\">Takings<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In\u00a0Alford v. United States, 961 F.3d 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2020), owners complained that the Army Corps of Engineers took their properties by temporarily flooding a nearby lake, knowing it would damage the plaintiffs\u2019 property but doing so to avoid even greater damage to their property from a breach of the levee that was almost certain to occur if the Corps had not acted and which would have resulted in the complete destruction of plaintiffs\u2019 properties. The Federal Circuit applied the \u201crelative benefits\u201d doctrine and reversed the Claims Court\u2019s finding of a regulatory taking. It found that the plaintiffs\u2019 properties \u201cwould have been far worse off and suffered more serious damage if the government had not acted\u201d and, for that reason, the government\u2019s action protected, rather than took, property.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-takings"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}