MUSKOGEE, Okla.—After years in court, Melisa Robinson was overjoyed when the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the city of Okay owed her family $73,000 for taking their property. Melisa’s family are the long-time owners of a small mobile home community that was damaged in 2009 when Okay workers dug a sewer line on it without any legal authorization. But now Melisa is back in court after filing a federal lawsuit demanding that Okay actually pay her what the state’s highest court says she is owed, which today comes to more than $200,000.

But the city says that the Okay Public Works Authority (the Trust) that owes Melisa the money is penniless. Any money the Trust has belongs to the city—but the city doesn’t owe Melisa anything (even though it controls the Trust). That is unconstitutional: The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says the government must pay for what it takes, and that means it must pay in cash—not hand over a worthless IOU. That is why Melisa has teamed up with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to file her lawsuit against the city of Okay.

“No one would sell their house if, at closing, the buyer showed up with an IOU instead of with money, but that’s exactly what Okay is trying to get away with here,” said IJ Attorney Brian Morris. “But constitutional rights aren’t a shell game. Government officials nationwide have to obey the Fifth Amendment, full stop.”

The Fifth Amendment forbids the government from taking property “without just compensation.” In Melisa’s case, Okay began digging a brand-new sewer line on her property—without obtaining permission and without giving notice. (The Trust owned a sewer easement on the land next door. It didn’t own anything on Melisa’s land, but it dug anyway.) Even beyond taking place on land that Okay didn’t own, the work did not go well. There was extensive damage to the property and the sewage did not drain correctly from the homes. Melisa paid to fix the damage and then sued for compensation.

A jury awarded her compensation but an appeals court overturned that award, saying that the Trust lacked the power of eminent domain. But in 2022, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in Melisa’s favor, explaining that the Trust did have the power of eminent domain and that the project was for a “public use.”

But for years now the Trust has refused to pay. Melisa has used all the typical state court collection procedures to no avail. As Melisa just discovered, the Trust’s assets are all property of the city and the city refuses to be responsible for the Trust. The total amount owed to Melisa comes to more than $200,000 in compensation, attorneys’ fees, costs, and interest.

“Okay needs to pay what the Oklahoma Supreme Court says it owes me,” said Melisa. “If the city can do this to me, there’s nothing stopping any government from doing the same thing to others. I want to be paid and I want to put a stop to this before it catches on.”

The Constitution’s plain language should bar the government from playing shell games when it comes to paying just compensation. Melisa’s lawsuit brings claims against the Trust and the city that her Fifth Amendment rights are being violated. She is suing both directly under the Fifth Amendment and under the federal civil rights statute for violations of the Constitution.

Okay’s legal maneuver is rare but not without precedent: Louisiana residents once faced a similar conundrum. Because compensation for takings required an appropriation by the state government, Louisiana legislators simply delayed appropriations, leaving property owners indefinitely unpaid. However, the Louisiana Supreme Court recently ruled that failure to pay violates its state constitution.

“Okay officials are hardly alone in trying to weasel out of the basic obligation to pay for what they take,” said IJ Senior Attorney and Deputy Litigation Director Robert McNamara. “If federal courts sign off on this gambit, officials across the country will eagerly jump on the bandwagon—and property owners will be left to foot the bill.”

Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause have favored property owners. In an IJ case from the last term, DeVillier v. Texas, the Court ruled that Texas could not use legal maneuvering to keep itself from being sued by a rancher whose land was flooded by a state project. IJ is also defending home and business owners fighting eminent domain in Missouri and Mississippi. In a case from the previous term in which IJ filed an amicus brief, Tyler v. Hennepin County, the Court ruled that the government could not seize property for failure to pay taxes and pocket money above what the taxpayer owed.