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
- 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.