"This petition rests upon a simple proposition: a person
that directly owns a specified property right is entitled to
bring a claim under the Takings Clause that such specified
property right has been taken by the government. It may
be that the reviewing court decides the property right
that is identified is not protected by the Takings Clause,
or that the government action at issue did not constitute
a “taking” of that property. But if a plaintiff plausibly
alleges that it owns property and that specified property
has been taken by the government, then the plaintiff has
the right to bring its own claim under the Takings Clause.
That ought to be an uncontroversial proposition. There is no case from this Court that can be read to hold
otherwise. Nevertheless, in this case, the lower courts
lost sight of this simple proposition when confronted
with a case where the plaintiffs are shareholders in
corporations who allege that their shareholder rights –
most importantly, their rights to future dividends – have
been taken. Instead of analyzing whether plaintiffs had
identified a property right that they (and they alone)
directly own, and whether they had plausibly alleged
that this property right had been taken, the lower courts
reflexively looked to Delaware state law governing when
certain kinds of shareholder claims brought under state
law are “direct” versus when they are “derivative.” That
state law doctrine deals principally with claims of fiduciary
breach, and focuses on the corporate law inquiry as to
the persons to whom the defendant owes fiduciary duties
– the corporation only, the shareholders only, or both. It
also inquires into which plaintiff is most appropriately
positioned to bring a state common law claim to ensure
all injured parties are made whole.
Those state law inquiries are irrelevant to a case
brought under the Takings Clause. Under the Takings
Clause, the only inquiry needed to determine whether a
person is a proper plaintiff is whether that person has
plausibly alleged that they (and they alone) directly owned
property that has been taken by the government. If so,
that person has a right to bring a claim under the Takings
Clause that must be evaluated on the merits.
By holding to the contrary, the Federal Circuit
drastically reduced the protections of the Takings Clause
for corporate shareholders. Since the Federal Circuit
is the exclusive court of appeals for claims seeking just
compensation under the Takings Clause, this Court should
grant certiorari to ensure that this gross distortion of the
law does not stand."
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. - Manifesto of the Communist Party
Karl Marx
AI
