## Facts

- The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission owned and managed a 23,000-acre wildlife management area containing bottomland hardwood timber along the Black River.
- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operated a dam upstream under a water-control plan that set seasonally varying release rates.
- From 1993 to 2000, the Corps repeatedly deviated from the plan by extending higher water releases into the area’s peak timber growing season.
- The deviations caused recurrent, extended flooding during the growing season on the Commission’s land.
- The Commission alleged the flooding destroyed timber, substantially altered the land’s character, and required costly reclamation.
- After the Corps stopped deviating in 2000, the Commission sued for just compensation, alleging a taking under the Fifth Amendment.

## Issues

1. Whether government-induced flooding of finite duration is categorically exempt from the Takings Clause unless it is permanent or inevitably recurring.
2. Whether temporary, recurrent flood invasions can qualify as a compensable physical taking under ordinary takings principles.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit and remanded.
- The Court held that temporary government-induced flooding has no automatic exemption from Takings Clause review.
- The Court rejected a categorical requirement that flooding must be “permanent or inevitably recurring” to support a takings claim.
- The Court did not decide whether a taking occurred on these facts, leaving that determination for further proceedings under the correct legal standard.

## Legal Principles

- Government-induced flooding, even if temporary, is not categorically excluded from Takings Clause liability.
- Flooding claims are assessed under the same general approach applied to other alleged physical invasions; no special immunity applies simply because the intrusion is water.
- Duration of the invasion is relevant but not a threshold requirement; it is one factor in a fact-specific inquiry.
- Factors relevant to whether flooding effects amount to a taking include duration, the extent to which the invasion was intended or foreseeable, the character and use of the land, the owner’s reasonable investment-backed expectations, and the severity of the interference.

## Conclusion

The Court held that recurrent flooding of limited duration can support a takings claim and rejected a categorical permanency rule, requiring courts to evaluate such claims under ordinary, multi-factor takings analysis.


Arkansas Game & Fish Comm’n v. United States, 568 U.S. 23 (2012)