A Prudential Take on a Prudential Takings Doctrine

Authors

Katherine Mims Crocker, Texas A&M University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2018

Journal Title

Michigan Law Review Online

Abstract

The Supreme Court is set to decide a case requesting reconsideration of a doctrine that has long bedeviled constitutional litigants and commentators. The case is Knick v. Township of Scott, and the doctrine is the “ripeness” rule from Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank that plaintiffs seeking to raise takings claims under the Fifth Amendment must pursue state-created remedies first — the so-called “compensation prong” (as distinguished from a separate “takings prong”). This Essay argues that to put the compensation prong in the best light possible, the Court should view the requirement as a “prudential” rule rather than (as it has previously done) a constitutional one. It then argues that the Court should reject this doctrine not because it is a prudential rule, which would follow a larger trend in recent case discussions, but because it is a bad prudential rule. This path is the prudential one because casting doubt on prudential rules more generally could cause a significant set of additional doctrines to suffer unintended and unwelcome consequences.

First Page

39

Last Page

54

Num Pages

16

Volume Number

117

Publisher

University of Michigan Law School

Recommended Citation

Katherine Mims Crocker, A Prudential Take on a Prudential Takings Doctrine, 117 Mich. L. Rev. Online 39 (2018).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/2079

File Type

PDF