Bernadine Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (520 U.S. 725)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 27, 1997 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 520 U.S. 725 · 117 S. Ct. 1659
- Decided
- May 27, 1997
- Term
- October Term 1996
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner Bernadine Suitum owns land near the Nevada shore of Lake Tahoe. Respondent Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, which regulates land use in the region, determined that Suitum’s property is ineligible for development but entitled to receive certain allegedly valuable “Transferable Development Rights” (TDR’s). Suitum has brought an action for compensation under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, claiming that the agency’s determinations amounted to a regulatory taking of her property. While the pleadings raise issues about the significance of the TDR’s both to the claim that a taking has occurred and to the constitutional requirement of just compensation, we have no occasion to decide, and we do not decide, whether or not these TDR’s may be considered in deciding the issue whether there has been a taking in this case, as opposed to the issue whether just compensation has been afforded for such a taking. The sole question here is whether the claim is ripe for adjudication, even though Suitum has not attempted to sell the development rights she has or is eligible to receive. We hold that it is. I In 1969, Congress approved the Tahoe Regional Planning Compact between the States of California and Nevada, creating respondent as an interstate agency to regulate development in the Lake Tahoe basin. See Lake Country Estates,…
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