Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut
A Connecticut state agency designated the city of New London a distressed municipality, and in 1996, the federal government closed a naval facility in the Fort Trumbull area of the city. In 1998, Pfizer Inc. announced that it would build a $300 million facility on a site next to Fort Trumbull. Hoping to attract businesses, the city council approved a plan to redevelop the area that once housed the federal facility. When negotiations with some of the owners fell through, the city began condemnation proceedings. Susette Kelo and others filed a suit in a Connecticut state court against the city and others. The plaintiffs claimed, among other things, that taking their property would violate the public use restriction in the U.S. Constitutions Fifth Amendment. The court ruled in favor of both sides. On appeal, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that the proposed takings were valid. The owners appealed.
The United States Supreme Court affirmed. Economic development can constitute public use within the meaning of the Fifth Amendments takings clause to justify a local governments exercise of its power of eminent domain to take private property. The development unquestionably serves a public purpose, even though it would also benefit private parties. Viewed as a whole, our jurisprudence has recognized that the needs of society have varied between different parts of the Nation, just as they have evolved over time in response to changed circumstances. Our earliest cases in particular embodied a strong theme of federalism, emphasizing the great respect that we owe to state legislatures and state courts in discerning local public needs. For more than a century, our public use jurisprudence has wisely eschewed rigid formulas and intrusive scrutiny in favor of affording legislatures broad latitude in determining what public needs justify the use of the takings power.”
The plaintiffs urged the courts to adopt a new bright-line rule that economic development does not qualify as a public use, but the Court chose not to do this. Why? Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government. There is, moreover, no principled way of distinguishing economic development from the other public purposes that we have recognized. In our cases upholding takings that facilitated agriculture and mining, for example, we emphasized the importance of those industries to the welfare of the States in question; [and in a third case] we endorsed the purpose of transforming a blighted area into a well-balanced community through redevelopment . . . . It would be incongruous to hold that the City’s interest in the economic benefits to be derived from
Why did the United States Supreme Court grant certiorari in this case, and what did the Court hold with respect to the principal issue?
Considering the impact of the ruling in this case, what are some arguments against the decision?
