Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hello. All this is constitutional law One.
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And in this video we are discussing the takings clause
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and in particular the definition of public use.
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So what qualifies as a public use under the takings
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clause? Well, pretty much anything.
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The court, in an extremely controversial case called Kilo v
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City of New London in 2005 held by a 54
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margin that any rationally related regulation that are taking that
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are taking is valid as long as it is rationally
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related to any conceivable conceivable that are taking is valid
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as long as it is rationally related to a conceivable
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public purpose.
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Now notice that this is an extremely broad definition, right?
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Any conceivable public purpose notice also that is very, very
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close to the rational basis test.
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So pretty much anything that the government can define, describe
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and characterized as in the benefit of the public in
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general will be sufficient to justify a taking now, specifically,
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in the case of Kilo, what was going on was
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that this old lady owned the house in a in
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an area of the city that was allegedly quite run
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down and economically depressed, and a big multinational pharmaceutical company
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had proposed the development for that area that was supposed
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to stimulate economic growth in the area and improve the
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city in general.
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And but to carry out their development, they needed the
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property with this lady lived and she didn't want to
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sell it.
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And so the government came in exercise its power of
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eminent domain, which cannot be resisted by by the owner
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and pay just compensation and took the property.
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And then they turned around and gave it to the
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pharmaceutical company toe another private party.
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Now what are they doing, right?
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They're doing exactly what we were talking about in Kaldor
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Bible. That shouldn't be done.
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Taking property from a to give to be.
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Nevertheless, the court holds that that is okay.
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The government may seize private property, not on Lee for
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its own immediate direct use, but also to transfer it
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to another private party.
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Now, of course, they can't do that for no reason
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at all.
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Right, there has to be some public purpose, but it
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could be any conceivable public purpose.
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And if you think back to my college v Maryland
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right, the notion that once you have the power to
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take the property or to further a particular public purpose,
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such as the stimulus of, uh, the economic area that
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was depressed.
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The means by which you carry out that project are
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left to the legislature, to the side.
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So the city of New London could have taken the
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property and created a development themselves, right?
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They could have started a business or they could have
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rented the property out, made a huge, uh, shopping mall,
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right, and rented it out to people or or maybe
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even constructed the shopping mall and then sold the building
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to a private person.
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Instead, they decided, No, we're just going to take the
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property and hand it over to a private entity who
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will then go on and develop it.
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As long as that process has as its final end
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a public purpose in this case stimulating the depressed economy
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in this area of New London.
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Then the court says it's okay now.
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As I said, this case is extremely controversial.
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A lot of people are very upset when they learn
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about it.
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Um, the configuration of the court in in that 54
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majority is is quite interesting and maybe unexpected.
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So so It's a very quirky case.
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Justice Stevens was wanna once once asked of all the
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cases after he retired.
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Of all the cases that he had written, was there
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any case that he would take back and and write
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differently? And he didn't take it back?
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He didn't say he would.
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He would change his vote.
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But he did say that Kilo v New London was
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the one he felt most uncomfortable about sometimes given everything
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that happened and part of the reason and what happened
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after, the fact was that the pharmaceutical company actually never
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developed the project.
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The lady lost her house and was the development never
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took place.
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And so the benefits that society was supposed to accrue
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never actually, uh, came to pass.
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But that is the holding Now, is there a limit
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to this holding?
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Yes, of course there is a limit.
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You there has to be some public purpose.
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You can't just take somebody's property and give it to
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a friend of yours.
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Right? So I think if the case came along in
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which someone became governor of a state and then decided
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to use the power of eminent domain to, uh, to
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help you know, a deer childhood friend obtain of property
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that they've been trying to get since, uh, for years
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on haven't been able to acquire.
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That is the kind of purely private right, uh, frankly,
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corruption, right?
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That's what we call corruption.
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Um, that I think would would not fall on their
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public use, but it would have to be something quite
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dramatic. And of course, the ability of someone to prove
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that that a particular act was corrupt can sometimes be
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difficult because, you know, there are ways of dressing things
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up. And when you when you have a standard that
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is so broad as any conceivable purpose, right, one can
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come up with with conceivable public purposes for almost anything.
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But we should bear in mind that, of course, if
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a purely corrupt private transaction was taking place, that would,
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uh, that that that would not constitute public use and
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would not, and the state would have to surrender its
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ability to to take that property.
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So with that, we shall move on in the next
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video to talk about just compensation.
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So thanks for listening again on.
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I'll see you soon