## Facts

- Minneapolis police pursued armed felony suspects who fled by car, then on foot.
- One suspect entered Harriet G. Wegner’s home and hid in a closet; Wegner’s granddaughter and her fiancé escaped and alerted police.
- Police surrounded the home and summoned the Emergency Response Unit for a barricaded-suspect operation.
- After hours without response, officers fired tear gas into multiple levels of the home and deployed concussion grenades, breaking nearly all windows and causing extensive damage.
- Wegner claimed about $71,000 in damage; her insurer paid roughly $28,000 and denied the remainder, and the City denied liability.
- Wegner sued the City for trespass and a constitutional taking/damaging, and sued the insurer for additional policy benefits.

## Issues

1. Whether intentional, direct damage to an innocent homeowner’s property caused by police tactics during suspect apprehension constitutes property “taken, destroyed or damaged for public use” requiring just compensation under the Minnesota Constitution.
2. Whether the doctrine of public necessity or characterization of the conduct as an exercise of police power defeats the constitutional obligation to compensate.

## Decision

- The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the summary judgment for the City and remanded for trial on damages.
- The court held that the City was constitutionally obligated to compensate Wegner for the damage caused during the police operation.
- The court rejected use of public necessity to avoid the constitutional duty to pay compensation in these circumstances.

## Legal Principles

- Under the Minnesota Constitution, private property may not be taken, destroyed, or damaged for public use without just compensation; the clause reaches direct destruction or damage, not only formal condemnations.
- A governmental entity may be required to compensate an innocent third party when police intentionally and directly damage or destroy property as part of law-enforcement actions undertaken for the public benefit.
- The obligation to compensate does not turn on whether the government labels the action “police power” rather than “eminent domain”; the constitutional limit applies to governmental action regardless of label.
- Public necessity does not categorically bar compensation where police conduct, though reasonable and for public safety, imposes a concentrated and substantial loss on an innocent owner.

## Conclusion

Because police deliberately inflicted severe, direct damage to an innocent homeowner’s property while apprehending a suspect, the loss was a compensable taking/damaging for public use under the Minnesota Constitution, and the City was required to pay just compensation.


Wegner v. Milwaukee Mut. Ins. Co., 479 N.W.2d 38 (Minn. 1991)