Nollan v. California Coastal Commission

• Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926).
• Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc., 348 U.S. 483 (1955).
• Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104 (1978).
• Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980).
• Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419 (1982).
• First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304 (1987).
• Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992).
• Dolan v. City of Tigard, 114 S. Ct. 2481 (1994).

The Taking Clause or "just compensation" principle is a provision of the Constitution that suggests that the government must compensate individuals for the confiscation of private property. In a 1922 opinion Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes extended the Takings Clause to include situations where government regulation causes a significant decrease in the value of an individual's property.

Despite early efforts to define a general formula to determine when or if an individual should be compensated for a taking, they are now dealt with on a case by case basis. There is some debate over the original intent of the Takings Clause. Some argue that only the seizure of property by the government warrants compensation while others contend that government regulation limiting the use and hence value of a piece of private property should also be compensated. The government weighs factors of public benefit against private loss to determine whether an individual is due compensation for takings. For example, if an individual owns a building which happens to be defined as an historic building, that individual would not be compensated if the government prohibited a potentially profitable venture (e.g. selling it to a chain department store); the individual could still profit from renting the building out.

Sources

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