High court rules in landowners' favor

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), May 28, 1997 by Richard Carelli Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- In a major victory for landowners nationwide, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a California woman must get her day in court to seek compensation for being barred from building on her Nevada land.

The justices ruled unanimously that 82-year-old Bernadine Suitum's six-year-old lawsuit is procedurally ready for a ruling on its merits.

The ruling rejected arguments by lawyers for the Clinton administration and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. Had the justices ruled against Suitum, states and communities could have been given a green light to continue creative attempts at regulating land use without having to pay the "just compensation" the Constitution's Fifth Amendment requires for "takings" of private property for public use. Tuesday's ruling instead could put a considerable crimp in such efforts. "The sole question here is whether the claim is ripe for adjudication," Justice David H. Souter wrote for the court. "We hold that it is." In another case, the Supreme Court left intact a $3.25 million age-bias award won by an Ohio man fired as a partner in the Ernst & Young accounting firm. The court, without comment, refused to review rulings that labeled P. Larue Simpson an employee of Ernst & Young -- not a policy-making partner -- for purposes of his 1991 lawsuit. Simpson, 53, said he was glad the case was finally over. "You can't describe the emotion, after having been at it this long," he said after the court ruling. The money he receives from the suit will serve as the retirement fund he was denied when Ernst & Young fired him in May 1990 at age 47, he said. In other actions, the court: * Turned away, without comment, an appeal by former United Way president William Aramony, who was convicted of stealing money from the nation's largest charity. * Agreed to decide whether the federal government can seize and keep all the money people try to take outside the United States without filing the proper reports. * Let stand a ruling that says the U.S. Information Agency discriminated against women in hiring. In the property case, Suitum owns an 18,300-square-foot plot of land in Incline Village, Nev., near Lake Tahoe. Development in the area is controlled by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, created to protect the lake. Suitum, who has owned the undeveloped land since 1972, sought permission in 1989 to build a house on it. But the planning agency decided her property was in a "stream environment zone" where all private building is barred. A resident of Sacramento, Calif., Suitum sued in federal court. She said the agency's denial of a building permit amounted to a taking of her property that required she be paid. But a trial judge and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against her. The lower courts noted that the Tahoe agency had created a system in which Suitum could sell various types of development credits to other property owners. Those owners in turn could use the credits to enhance development rights to other property. In Suitum's case, agency officials said she never tried to sell her land-development credits in an effort to be compensated for not building on her property. The lower courts ruled that Suitum's development rights must be sold so the economic effect of the planning agency's regulations could be determined. In essence, the 9th Circuit court said Suitum's lawsuit had been premature. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court said the lower courts were wrong. Souter said Suitum had received a "final decision" on her land that could be challenged in court. Those supporting Suitum's fight in friends-of-the-court briefs included the American Farm Bureau Federation, Defenders of Property Rights, American Homeowners Foundation, American Land Rights Association and the National Association of Homebuilders. Those supporting the regulatory agency included seven states -- Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Montana and Vermont - - and the American Planning Association, National League of Cities, National Governors' Association, National Trust for Historic Preservation and California Gov. Pete Wilson. The case is Suitum vs. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 96-243.