## Facts

- New London, Connecticut, faced economic decline marked by unemployment and population loss.
- The city adopted a comprehensive redevelopment plan for the Fort Trumbull neighborhood aimed at economic revitalization, including expected job growth and increased tax revenue.
- The city’s development agent acquired many parcels through voluntary sales, but several owners, including Susette Kelo, refused to sell.
- The city initiated eminent domain proceedings to condemn the remaining non-blighted properties and transfer them to private developers as part of the plan.
- The property owners did not contest just compensation; they challenged the takings as lacking a valid “public use” under the Fifth Amendment.

## Issues

1. Whether using eminent domain to take non-blighted private property for transfer to private parties as part of a comprehensive economic development plan constitutes “public use” under the Fifth Amendment (as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment).

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment upholding the takings, in a 5–4 decision.
- The Court held that the takings qualified as a permissible “public use” because they served a public purpose through a comprehensive economic development plan.
- The Court emphasized deference to legislative and local determinations of public needs and the means chosen to address them.
- The Court stated that a taking remains unconstitutional if it is a pretext to confer a private benefit on a particular private party.
- Justice Kennedy concurred, indicating that more searching review may be warranted when a dominant private purpose is plausibly suspected, but finding no illegitimate purpose on this record.
- Dissents argued that “public use” should not include economic development alone and warned that the rule allows transfers from one private owner to another based on projected economic gain.

## Legal Principles

- “Public use” under the Takings Clause is satisfied by a public purpose; it is not limited to property that will be owned by the public or open to the public for use.
- Economic development can be a legitimate public purpose supporting eminent domain when pursued through a comprehensive, carefully considered plan.
- Courts generally defer to legislative judgments about what public needs justify takings, particularly where planning requires predictive economic judgments.
- The Takings Clause does not permit condemnation undertaken to confer a private benefit on a particular private party, and a taking is invalid if the asserted public purpose is a pretext for private favoritism.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld New London’s use of eminent domain to implement a comprehensive economic development plan, concluding that projected community-wide economic benefits can satisfy the Fifth Amendment’s public use requirement, subject to limits against purely private or pretextual takings.


Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005)