544
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
While there are instances where the Government's self-enrichment may make it all the more evident a taking has occurred, e. g., Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beck-with, 449 U. S. 155 (1980); United States v. Causby, 328 U. S. 256 (1946), the Government ought not to have the capacity to give itself immunity from a takings claim by the device of requiring the transfer of property from one private owner directly to another. Cf. Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U. S. 229 (1984). At the same time, the Govern-ment's imposition of an obligation between private parties, or destruction of an existing obligation, must relate to a specific property interest to implicate the Takings Clause. For example, in United States v. Security Industrial Bank, we confronted a statute which was alleged to destroy an existing creditor's lien in certain chattels to the benefit of the debtor. We acknowledged that, given the nature of the property interest at stake, which resembled a contractual obligation, the takings challenge "fits but awkwardly into the analytic framework" of our regulatory takings analysis. 459 U. S., at 75. We decided the analysis could apply because the property interest was a "traditional property interes[t]," though in the end the statute was found inapplicable to the lien at issue. In so holding, we relied on Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford, 295 U. S. 555 (1935), which invalidated the Frazier-Lemke Farm-Mortgage Act, because it interfered with mortgages on farms and thus worked a " 'taking of substantive rights in specific property acquired by the Bank prior to' " the Act. 459 U. S., at 77 (quoting Radford, supra, at 590, 601). Unlike the statutes at issue in Security Industrial Bank and Radford, the Coal Act does not affect an obligation relating to a specific property interest.
If the plurality is adopting its novel and expansive concept of a taking in order to avoid making a normative judgment about the Coal Act, it fails in the attempt; for it must make the normative judgment in all events. See, e. g., ante, at 537 ("[T]he governmental action implicates fundamental princi-
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