Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 520 U.S. 725, 10 (1997)

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734

SUITUM v. TAHOE REGIONAL PLANNING AGENCY

Opinion of the Court

prudential hurdles to a regulatory takings claim brought against a state entity in federal court. Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U. S. 172 (1985), explained that a plaintiff must demonstrate that she has both received a "final decision regarding the application of the [challenged] regulations to the property at issue" from "the government entity charged with implementing the regulations," id., at 186, and sought "compensation through the procedures the State has provided for doing so," id., at 194. The first requirement follows from the principle that only a regulation that "goes too far," Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 415 (1922), results in a taking under the Fifth Amendment, see, e. g., MacDonald, Sommer & Frates v. Yolo County, 477 U. S. 340, 348 (1986) ("A court cannot determine whether a regulation has gone 'too far' unless it knows how far the regulation goes"); see also Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U. S. 1003, 1014-1019 (1992) (regulation " 'goes too far' " and results in a taking "at leas[t] in the extraordinary circumstance when no productive or economically beneficial use of land is permitted"). The second hurdle stems from the Fifth Amendment's proviso that only takings without "just compensation" infringe that Amendment; "if a State provides an adequate procedure for seeking just compensation, the property owner cannot claim a violation of the Just Compensation Clause until it has used the procedure and been denied just compensation," Williamson County, supra, at 195. Because only the "final decision" prong of Williamson was addressed below and briefed before this Court, we confine our discussion here to that issue.8

8 We therefore do not decide whether Williamson County's "state procedures" requirement has been satisfied in this case. Ordinarily, a plaintiff must seek compensation through state inverse condemnation proceedings before initiating a takings suit in federal court, unless the State does not provide adequate remedies for obtaining compensation. See Williamson County, 473 U. S., at 194-196. Suitum's counsel stated at oral argument

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