Recently, I blogged about the amicus brief I filed on behalf of myself and seven other legal scholars urging the Supreme Court to hear the case of Didden v. Village of Port Chester. Didden is a Second Circuit decision that upheld the taking of property that was condemned because the owners refused to pay a private developer the $800,000 he demanded as the price for avoiding the use of eminent domain.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, a prominent public interest law firm, has now also filed an amicus brief in the case, also urging the Supremes to hear it. Unlike our brief, which focuses on the question of whether or not this kind of pretextual condemnation is permissible under the Public Use Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the PLF brief focuses on the separate question of whether the Constitution permits the government to use its regulatory powers to engage in “exactions” that force property owners to pay money to either the government or private parties as the price of retaining their rights. Both issues are important, and hopefully both will be considered by the Court.
For a helpful short synopsis of the exaction issue raised by Didden, see this post by PLF attorney and leading eminent domain expert Tim Sandefur, author of the PLF amicus brief.