San Remo Hotel, L. P., et al. v. City and County of San Francisco, California, et al. (545 U.S. 323)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 20, 2005 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 545 U.S. 323 · 125 S. Ct. 2491
- Decided
- June 20, 2005
- Term
- October Term 2004
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Stevens
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the question whether federal courts may craft an exception to the full faith and credit statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1738, for claims brought under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Petitioners, who own and operate a hotel in San Francisco, California (hereinafter City), initiated this litigation in response to the application of a city ordinance that required them to pay a $567,000 “conversion fee” in 1996. After the California courts rejected petitioners’ various state-law takings claims, they advanced in the Federal District Court a series of federal takings claims that depended on issues identical to those that had previously been resolved in the state-court action. In order to avoid the bar of issue preclusion, petitioners asked the District Court to exempt from § 1738’s reach claims brought under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Petitioners’ argument is predicated on Williamson County Regional Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U. S. 172 (1985), which held that takings claims are not ripe until a State fails “to provide adequate compensation for the taking.” Id., at 195. Unless courts disregard § 1738 in takings cases, petitioners argue, plaintiffs will be forced to litigate their claims in state court without any realistic possibility of ever obtaining review in a…
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