- Inverse condemnation
Inverse condemnation is a term used in the
law to describe a situation in which the government takes private property but fails to pay the just compensation required by the Constitution. In order to be compensated, the owner must then sue the government. In such cases the owner is the plaintiff and that is why the action is called inversendash the order of parties is reversed, as compared to direct condemnation where the government is the plaintiff who sues a defendant-owner to take his property.The taking can be physical (i.e. land seizure, flooding, retention of possession after a
lease to the government expires, deprivation of access, removal of ground support) or it can be aregulatory taking (when regulations are so onerous that they make it unusable by the owner for any reasonable or economically viable purpose). The latter is the most controversial form of inverse condemnation. It is considered to occur when the regulation of the property's use is so severe that it goes "too far," as Justice Holmes put it in "Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon ", 260 U.S. 393 (1922), and deprives the owner of the property's value, utility or marketability, denying him or her the benefits of property ownership thus accomplishing a constitutionally forbidden de facto taking without compensation.An inverse taking need not be a taking of land or rights in land (such as
easement s). It can be a taking ofpersonal property (e.g. supplies for the army in wartime),intellectual property (such aspatent s andcopyright s), as well ascontract s. It can also extend to temporary or permanent interference with activities such as the conduct of a business at a location or even thequiet enjoyment of the property whether the underlyingreal property is owned by the business operator.External links
* [http://realtytimes.com/rtnews/rtcpages/20000928_condemnation.htm "Regulatory Taking" and "Inverse Condemnation" Explained]
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