MARGARET THATCHER once said, “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”
PLF attorney Dave Breemer knows this full well, having fought the same property rights battle for the past 15 years. And sometimes one everyday person makes the difference.
On October 3, Rose Knick, owner of a small farm in rural Pennsylvania, will take her case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Breemer will argue for overturning Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank.
Williamson County is a 1985 Supreme Court precedent that created a new rule barring property owners from federal courts. Simply put, the rule says when government takes private property without just compensation, landowners can’t go straight to federal court. Instead, they must exhaust all claims at state courts first. When combined with other procedural maneuvers, there’s little chance property owners will ever see justice for their property takings.
“Williamson County is the most unjust and damaging property rights decision of the modern era,” Breemer says. “It has turned the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause—one of the most important individual rights—into a toothless ‘paper’ right. Property owners’ complaints just disappear.”
For 33 years, Williamson County has shut courtroom doors to property rights victims and stymied efforts by PLF attorneys and others to both help these victims and seek Supreme Court review.
That changed in March when the High Court announced it will take up Knick v. Scott Township, Pennsylvania, in which PLF represents Rose.
Rose lives alone on a quiet farm in rural Pennsylvania. Township officials showed up one day and ordered her to allow public access to an alleged burial site on her property. She sued, claiming she was subject to a “taking” under the Fifth Amendment. Even though her claim is a federal one, the federal courts refused to hear the case—because of Williamson County.
No other constitutional protection gets such second-class treatment.
Take the First Amendment. If police prevented Rose from staging a peaceful sit-in on the township hall’s front lawn (say, to protest an unjust graveyard law), thus violating her rights to assemble and express herself, a federal court couldn’t refuse Rose’s case.
Knick has the potential to put all federal rights on equal footing. And while the case represents a career conquest for Breemer, he gives Rose full credit.
“We wouldn’t be here without Rose’s boundless courage. Many everyday Americans and their attor- neys would have given up a long time ago—as they’ve done for 33 years,” Breemer says. “Not Rose. I’m hum- bled by her grit and I’m grateful for the opportunity to vindicate her rights at the highest court in the land.”
Breemer adds that for Rose, the battle isn’t just about keeping strangers off her property.
“It’s more important to Rose that her case has the potential to give thousands of everyday Americans just like her the courtroom access they deserve.”