## Facts

- Allegheny County, Pennsylvania owned and operated the Greater Pittsburgh Airport, developed with federal assistance under the federal airport program.
- Federal aviation authorities established approach patterns requiring aircraft to fly regularly and frequently at very low altitudes over Thomas N. Griggs’s residential property.
- The repeated overflights caused severe noise, vibrations, and safety concerns, forcing Griggs and his family to leave their home.
- Griggs claimed the overflights effectively imposed an air easement over his property, rendering it unsuitable for residential use.

## Issues

1. Whether repeated, low-altitude overflights required by airport approach patterns constituted a taking of an air easement requiring just compensation under the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. If a taking occurred, whether the responsible party was the County as airport owner/operator, rather than the United States or airlines acting under federal regulation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
- The Court held that the County had taken an air easement over Griggs’s property and owed just compensation under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The Court rejected the argument that federal control of airspace or federally prescribed flight patterns shifted takings liability away from the County.

## Legal Principles

- Repeated, low-altitude aircraft overflights that directly and substantially interfere with the use and enjoyment of land can constitute a compensable taking of an air easement.
- The Just Compensation requirement applies to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment.
- When a local government chooses the airport’s location and operates it in a manner that necessitates damaging approach-path overflights, that airport proprietor is the “taker” responsible for compensation, even if federal regulators set flight patterns and standards.

## Conclusion

The Court held that frequent, low-altitude overflights associated with an airport’s approach path may amount to a taking of an air easement, and that the local governmental entity owning and operating the airport must pay just compensation for the resulting invasion of nearby private property.


Griggs v. Allegheny Cnty., 369 U.S. 84 (1962)