Summary:
In a 5-4 opinion by Justice Stevens, the Supreme Court ruled that the “public use” requirement of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment permitted the City of New London to exercise its eminent domain power in taking property from homeowners and transferring it to another private owner as part of an economic development plan. Following precedent from previous cases, the Court broadly interpreted the “public use” requirement to mean “public purpose”—the city was not intending to open the condemned land for “use” by the general public, but a public “purpose” would be served through the benefits that the economic development plan would have on the community.
Analysis:
This case is activist because the court strained the plain text of the Constitution to achieve their apparent desired ends, bending terms to the point of breaking. The Takings Clause in the Fifth Amendment was enacted to prevent the government from infringing on the private property rights of citizens, a right which was fundamental to the American Founding. Thus the words “public use” limited the government’s power to the taking of private property only when the land desired would be used by the general public. Roads, schools, or libraries would be permissible grounds for public takings under this original understanding. The Court abused precedent, reinforcing grave errors by extending the misinterpretation of “public use” as being the equivalent of “public purpose,” which not only displaces the language of the Clause, but invites limitless infringement on one of our most fundamental rights. As Justice O’Connor states powerfully in her dissent, “Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded—i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public—in the process.”