## Facts

- St. Bernard Port, Harbor & Terminal District (the Port), a public port authority, sought to expand cargo-handling capacity due to increased demand and customer requests, including for liquid-cargo capability.
- Violet Dock Port, Inc. (Violet) owned and operated a private industrial port facility on roughly 75 acres along the Mississippi River with substantial river frontage, used primarily for berthing and mooring vessels.
- Violet had long-term layberthing and service contracts with the U.S. Navy and was planning to expand into cargo operations that would compete with the Port.
- The Port determined Violet’s property was the most suitable site for the Port’s expansion; negotiations for purchase failed.
- The Port filed a “quick-take” expropriation to acquire Violet’s property, with plans to improve it for cargo operations and lease it to a private terminal operator.
- Violet challenged the taking as lacking a public and necessary purpose and as an unconstitutional taking of a private business to operate it or halt competition; Violet also challenged the compensation methodology.
- After a bench trial, the district court upheld the expropriation and fixed compensation at $16 million based on the property’s current use; the court of appeal affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the expropriation satisfied the Louisiana Constitution’s requirement that takings be for a “public and necessary purpose,” including the constitutional authorization for public ports to facilitate transport of goods or persons in commerce.
2. Whether the expropriation violated the Louisiana Constitution’s business enterprise clause by taking a private business or its assets for the purpose of operating that enterprise or halting competition with a government enterprise.
3. Whether the compensation award complied with the constitutional requirement to compensate the owner to the “full extent of the loss.”

## Decision

- The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed that the expropriation was constitutional as serving a public purpose within the public-port authorization to facilitate transport of goods or persons in domestic or international commerce.
- The Court affirmed rejection of the business-enterprise-clause challenge, finding the record supported that the Port’s purpose was port expansion for commerce rather than operating Violet’s enterprise or halting competition as a prohibited purpose.
- The Court reversed the compensation judgment, holding the district court committed legal error by not applying the constitutional “full extent of the loss” standard.
- The case was remanded to the court of appeal solely to fix just compensation on the existing record under the correct constitutional principles.

## Legal Principles

- Under La. Const. art. I, § 4(B)(1), expropriation requires a “public and necessary purpose” and payment of just compensation to the “full extent of the loss.”
- La. Const. art. I, § 4(B)(6) generally prohibits expropriation of a business enterprise or its assets to operate that business or halt competition with a government enterprise, but the constitution expressly permits public port expropriations to facilitate transport in domestic or international commerce.
- A public port’s planned lease of an expropriated facility to a private operator does not, by itself, negate a constitutionally authorized public-port purpose when the intended use is to expand port capacity serving commerce.
- Trial-court findings on the governmental purpose of the taking are reviewed with deference when grounded in the record; a separate legal error in valuation can require reversal even if the taking is upheld.
- Louisiana’s “full extent of loss” compensation requirement may exceed market value and requires application of the correct legal framework to proven loss components supported by the record.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a public port’s quick-take of a competing private port facility as constitutionally authorized to facilitate commerce, but reversed the compensation award because it failed to reflect the owner’s loss under Louisiana’s more demanding “full extent of the loss” standard and remanded for recalculation.


St. Bernard Port, Harbor & Terminal Dist. v. Violet Dock Port, Inc., 239 So. 3d 243 (La. 2018)