The U.S. Constitution says that when the government takes your property, it must pay you “just compensation.” But what if, instead of paying you just compensation, it gives you an IOU that you can never cash in? That’s exactly what happened to Melisa and Mike Robinson.
In 2009, public workers in Okay, Oklahoma, devastated a small mobile-home park Melisa and Mike own and operate. The local sewer authority, which had a sewer easement on the property next door, sent workers out to build a new sewer line. Instead of working on the property they owned, though, they dug up sewer lines on Melisa and Mike’s land without any legal authorization. The damage was massive—beyond the damage from the digging itself, misaligned sewer lines failed to drain, and clipped power lines sparked power outages. Inside the tenants’ homes, toilets couldn’t flush, showers wouldn’t drain, and appliances blew out. It was a disgusting mess. When Okay officials refused to fix their mistake, Melisa and Mike ended up fixing the pipes themselves.
Then they sued. Exercising the same rights enjoyed by property owners nationwide, they filed a lawsuit claiming that the unauthorized construction on their property was a “taking.” The logic is simple: If Okay had followed the rules, it would have been required to use eminent domain to take the Robinsons’ property before building a sewer line, and eminent domain requires the government to pay just compensation. Since the government didn’t pay compensation before it wrecked the property, it should be required to pay now. In other words, the rule in the Constitution is the same as the rule in Pottery Barn: You break it, you buy it.
And they won. In a case that went all the way up to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Melisa and Mike were awarded tens of thousands of dollars in compensation for the taking of their property. So far, the system was working the way it was supposed to. The government took Melisa and Mike’s property, but a court ordered the government to pay them for what it took.
Then things took a turn. The problem is that sewer construction in Okay isn’t run by the Okay town government. It’s all run by the Okay Public Works Authority—a “public trust” that was legally established by the town. The Public Works Authority is run by the same six officials that were elected to run the town, but technically, it’s not part of the town. That’s where Okay officials tried to get clever. As it turns out, the Public Works Authority doesn’t have any money. It has the power of eminent domain, sure, but it doesn’t have any assets or revenues it could use to pay for the property it takes—those all belong to the town. And so Melisa and Mike, despite the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling in their favor, haven’t received a single cent in compensation, even though they are owed more than $200,000 at this point. The court judgment in their favor is just an unenforceable IOU.
That’s not just wrong—it’s unconstitutional. That is why Melisa and Mike have teamed up with the Institute for Justice to file a federal civil-rights lawsuit demanding that Okay officials pay them for what they took. Okay is far from alone in thinking that it’s come up with a clever way to avoid its constitutional obligations. This lawsuit will make sure that it joins the ranks of government officials who learned the hard way that the Constitution is not a suggestion. It’s mandatory.
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Andrew Wimer Director of Media Relations [email protected]Melisa and Mike Robinson Carve Out Their American Dream
Melisa and Mike married and had kids while they were still teenagers themselves. But starting young didn’t stop them from succeeding. Working relentlessly, they’ve carved out their own piece of the American dream. It started with Mike’s first small business, hauling and installing mobile homes. That business succeeded, and it gave the couple a lot of experience with mobile homes—which, particularly in rural Oklahoma, are a vitally important housing option. They soon decided that they could put that experience to good use not just hauling mobile homes, but effectively managing a mobile-home community on their own.
That conviction led them to the River Valley Mobile Home Community in Okay. When they bought the place, it was in shambles, but through hard work and careful attention, they transformed it into a thriving, though modest community. Hardly a day goes by that Melisa isn’t at the community, making sure it provides a safe and well-maintained home for its residents and their families.
Melisa and Mike didn’t want to stop there. They wanted to grow River Valley—along with another local mobile-home community they owned—by buying more property, adding more homes, and even creating a safe and affordable place for RV and tiny homes to hook up.
Okay Carves Out Its Own Piece of Melisa and Mike’s Dream
That all changed in 2009, when the Okay Public Works Authority began work on a project meant to replace and relocate many of the town’s sewer lines. Part of the project called for a new sewer line, which Melisa expected to be placed on the property next door, where the Public Works Authority owned a sewer easement. To help out, Melisa even gave the construction crew permission to store their equipment on a vacant part of the River Valley lot. This gave the crew easy access to the neighboring property, which itself didn’t have a road on it like River Valley.
That kindness came at a cost. One day, Melisa arrived at her property to find construction in full swing—but on her land, not the property next door where she had expected the sewer line to go. It turned out that the Public Works Authority had planned all along to put the sewer line on Melisa and Mike’s land. It just didn’t bother to buy the land first. By the time it was finished, the Public Works Authority had caused extensive damage to River Valley’s property. And, as Melisa and the residents soon discovered, it had also replaced the sewage lines running to the individual mobile homes—but it had graded them wrong, resulting in sewage seeping out in the wrong direction. Eventually, Melisa and Mike used their own equipment and money to fix the pipes themselves.
Faced with tens of thousands of dollars in damages, they sued, arguing that building an unauthorized sewer line was a “taking” of their property that required the government to pay “just compensation.” The town of Okay itself disclaimed any responsibility. The damage, it said, was caused by the Public Works Authority, which was technically an independent “public trust” (albeit one created and run by the town’s elected officials). But, after years of litigation (including a trip all the way to the Oklahoma Supreme Court), Melisa and Mike won a resounding victory. Now, the Public Works Authority owes them over $200,000 in fees and costs.
That should have been the end of things. In most places, it would have been. The Constitution says the government must pay for what it takes, and a jury decided how much the government had taken from Melisa and Mike. But that wasn’t enough in Okay. According to Okay officials, Melisa and Mike’s property wasn’t taken by the town but instead by the Public Works Authority. And the Public Works Authority (which, again, is run by the same six elected officials that run the town) simply didn’t have any money. It owned no property or equipment. It didn’t even have a bank account. Rather, when people paid their sewer bill, the Public Works Authority just deposited the money into an account owned by the town.
In other words, Okay officials had come up with an enormously clever way around the constitutional requirement that governments pay for what they take. They created the Public Works Authority, which had the power of eminent domain, but made sure it never held any money. It had the power to take property. It just didn’t have the ability to pay for what it took.
Constitutional Rights Are Not a Shell Game
That’s why Melisa and Mike are suing again, this time teaming up with the Institute for Justice to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against both the town and its Public Works Authority. Their legal theory is simple: The Constitution says when the government takes your property, it has to pay you for it—and that means with money, not empty IOUs. The Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed, most recently in DeVillier v. Texas, that the Constitution gives property owners “an irrevocable right to just compensation” at the moment their property is taken. Okay is trying to escape that basic constitutional duty through a clever trick—moving the power to take property over to one entity while keeping all the money that might fulfill that “irrevocable right to just compensation” with a different entity.
But constitutional rights are not a shell game. Melisa and Mike’s property was taken in 2009, and that means they are still owed compensation. And compensation means cash—not an empty IOU or a court judgment that can never be enforced.
In essence, Melisa and Mike are arguing that victims of government takings—who never wanted to sell their land in the first place—should be treated just as well as people who sell voluntarily. No one would sell their house if, at closing, the buyer showed up with a piece of paper promising to pay money at some unspecified time in the future. Property owners like Melisa and Mike should not be expected to accept that either. They are entitled to the same thing a home-seller would demand: Actual compensation in the form of money. If the government is unwilling to pay for your property, it doesn’t get to take your property.
Governments Nationwide Increasingly Try to Weasel Out of Their Basic Constitutional Obligation to Pay For What They Take
Melisa and Mike’s case is about more than just them. It’s about the rights of property owners nationwide. Increasingly, government officials are playing games, just like Okay, in an effort to avoid their basic constitutional obligations. Earlier this year, the Louisiana Supreme Court unanimously rejected a longstanding practice in which government agencies in that state would refuse to pay takings judgments. The court explained that payment is mandatory under both the Louisiana Constitution and the Fifth Amendment. Prior to that ruling, Louisiana officials would withhold payment for years, sometimes taking millions of dollars’ worth of property and leaving the owners with nothing. That practice is now over, at least in Louisiana: “A judgment for [a taking], left unsatisfied, does not constitute the payment of just compensation,” wrote the court, which means property owners are entitled to money, not just unenforceable promises.
The same problem also arises in other states. In Florida, for example, the state flatly refused to pay property owners for years after courts ruled that it had taken thousands of property owners’ citrus trees without just compensation. Melisa and Mike’s lawsuit seeks to put an end to these practices once and for all. If the government has your property today, it should pay you today—and, if it can’t, it shouldn’t have taken the property in the first place.
Litigation Team
The litigation team consists of IJ Attorney Brian Morris and IJ Deputy Litigation Director Robert McNamara, alongside local counsel Kim Ellis Ritchie and Nick Atwood of the Ritchie, Rock & Atwood Law Firm.
About the Institute for Justice
Founded in 1991, the Institute for Justice is a public-interest, nonprofit law firm leading the fight to protect American property rights from government overreach. It has litigated property rights cases in state and federal courts nationwide, including Supreme Court cases like Kelo v. City of New London and (most recently) DeVillier v. Texas, in which it successfully defended a Texas family’s right to seek just compensation for the flooding of their family ranch.