如果在联邦法院因反谴责而被起诉，会发生什么

地方政府最常提起的是两种直接定罪案件, 在这种情况下，当地要求法院强制出售财产, 和反谴责案例, where the property owner sues the locality for allegedly taking property without going through the formal procedures, 在州法院.  事实上, 直到最近, it was almost impossible to bring an inverse condemnation suit in federal court against a locality because of the practical impact of two Supreme Court rulings.  The first held that an owner’s inverse condemnation claim under federal law was not ripe unless 和 until the owner sued the locality responsible for the taking under state law 在州法院 和 failed to secure just compensation.  The other held that a state court’s resolution of a takings claim under state law would have preclusive effect on any takings claim under federal law.  因此, the owner could not bring a claim under federal law until he had first sued 在州法院, 和, 有一次业主在州法院起诉, 审判的结果将排除在联邦法院的单独诉讼.

最高法院在 裂v. 斯科特镇, 139 S. Ct. 2162 (2019), holding that a takings claim under federal law is ripe without first submitting the claim to state court.  在那个决定之后, localities may now find themselves in the unfamiliar situation of an inverse claim in federal court.  While claims under federal law litigated in federal court are similar in some respects to their Virginia counterparts, 也存在一些有意义的差异.

更严格的实质标准

根据联邦和弗吉尼亚州的法律, a property owner bringing an inverse condemnation claim must identify some governmental actor that allegedly deprived the owner of his property.  在维吉尼亚州, 这种剥夺可能是政府故意行为的结果, such as building a road over a property or intentionally releasing water from a dam 和 inundating private property downstream, 或者是故意遗漏的结果, such as a governmental actor purposefully designing public drainage infrastructure to be inadequate to h和le expected levels of precipitation 和 thereby using private property to h和le flooding from expected overflows from those systems.

Under federal law, by contrast, the deprivation must be the result of an overt governmental act.  A government’s failure to act—such as a lack of maintenance of public property leading to damage to private property or the inadequate drainage infrastructure discussed above—would not be sufficient to establish takings liability.  向联邦法院提起的此类案件将被驳回, 和, 如果业主也根据州法律向联邦法院提出索赔, the state law claims will likely be dismissed without prejudice so that they can be refiled 在州法院.

更严格的专家证人标准

Inverse condemnation cases typically require a good deal of expert testimony on both sides.  例如, 除了最明显的例子, an engineer will be required to establish that the government’s action caused the taking of the property at issue, 和 an appraiser will be needed to establish the value of the property taken.  在州法院和联邦法院, the opinions of such experts must be disclosed 和 must result from valid methodology.  然而, the st和ards for both disclosure 和 methodology are more exacting in federal court than in Virginia state courts.

The disclosure st和ards in federal court require that experts retained for purposes of the litigation prepare a report that sets forth, 除此之外, 专家将作证的所有意见的完整陈述, 这些观点的基础和原因, 以及证人在形成这些意见时所考虑的事实或资料.  Those reports are meant to be so comprehensive that deposing the experts is unnecessary.  在弗吉尼亚标准下, the facts 和 opinions to which the expert will testify must still be disclosed.  然而, the parties are only required to provide a summary of the grounds for that testimony, rather than the more comprehensive disclosure required by the federal rules.  It is therefore often necessary to conduct depositions of experts to get a complete picture of their opinions 和 the basis, 如果有任何, 为他们. 

Perhaps the biggest difference between the federal 和 state systems is the review of the expert’s methodology.  In the federal system, an expert’s opinions must pass a threshold of reliability described in 道伯特v. Merrell Dow制药公司., 509 U.S. 579(1993)及其后代.  在标准之下, the court is required to examine the methodology used by the expert to ensure that the opinions were derived using accepted 和 valid methods 和 that they are not the product of belief, 投机, 或者无效的推断.

在弗吉尼亚法院, 专家意见必须符合要求, 但是所适用的审查远没有联邦法院严格.  Like in federal court, the expert’s opinions cannot be based solely on 投机.  然而，对方法的探究则较为有限.  It is thus more common to see experts whose opinions are not wholly supported by hard data, 和 efforts to exclude such opinions from evidence meet with more limited success.

结论

综上所述, 这些差异, as well as the more structured litigation at the trial level in federal court, give localities some key advantages if they find themselves in federal court.  彭德律师事务所的律师 & 皇冠线上买球平台 have experience with defending inverse condemnation cases in both state 和 federal court 和 st和 ready to help localities enjoy the benefits of those advantages.

Matt 船体是彭德尔人 & 科沃德律师专注于土地征用权, 通行权, 统一搬迁法案很重要, 当地政府, 以及滨水物权法.