## Facts

- The United States, acting through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), undertook groundwater monitoring activities near the Stringfellow Acid Pits hazardous waste site in California under CERCLA.
- The monitoring plan included placing groundwater wells and related equipment in surrounding areas, including land owned by the plaintiffs adjacent to the site.
- EPA first sought access to plaintiffs’ land and then compelled access through an administrative order.
- EPA entered the property and installed and maintained monitoring wells and associated infrastructure as part of the cleanup and containment effort.
- Plaintiffs alleged that the government’s compelled entry and installations constituted a Fifth Amendment taking requiring just compensation.

## Issues

1. Whether EPA’s conduct and access order, treated as governmental regulation, effected a compensable regulatory taking under the Fifth Amendment.
2. Whether the United States could be held liable for remedial activities on the property undertaken by the State of California.
3. Whether plaintiffs were entitled to summary judgment on a taking theory based on permanent physical occupation from the monitoring wells and related installations.

## Decision

- The court granted the United States’ motion for summary judgment that there was no regulatory taking.
- The court granted the United States’ motion for summary judgment that the federal government was not responsible for actions on the property undertaken by the State of California.
- The court denied plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment on a permanent-physical-occupation taking theory and ordered trial on that claim.

## Legal Principles

- Regulatory-takings liability is evaluated under the fact-dependent framework associated with Penn Central and generally is not established merely by environmental regulation or enforcement measures absent a compensable level of burden.
- In a Tucker Act takings suit, federal liability is limited to federal action; conduct attributable solely to a state is not imputed to the United States for compensation.
- A physical-occupation takings theory may require proof of the character, extent, and duration of the intrusion; unresolved factual questions can bar summary judgment.

## Conclusion

The Claims Court narrowed the case at the summary-judgment stage by rejecting a regulatory-taking theory and any attempt to assign the United States liability for California’s actions, while leaving for trial whether EPA’s wells and related equipment on plaintiffs’ land amounted to a compensable taking by physical occupation.


Hendler v. United States, 11 Cl. Ct. 91 (Cl. Ct. 1986)