Supreme Court Declines to Hear Los Angeles Business Owner’s Case Seeking Compensation After SWAT Team Destroyed Shop

WASHINGTON—Today, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear a Los Angeles small business owner’s lawsuit seeking compensation after a SWAT team destroyed his print shop while pursuing a fugitive in 2022. NoHo Printing & Graphics Owner Carlos Pena and his attorneys from the Institute for Justice (IJ) argue he should be entitled to compensation under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“We’re obviously disappointed that the court declined to hear Carlos’ case, but we remain committed to fighting for compensation for innocent people whose property is damaged by the government,” said IJ Senior Attorney Jeffrey Redfern. “Eventually the Supreme Court will need to make it clear that the Fifth Amendment requires the government to compensate innocent people whose property is damaged by the government, even when the police are the ones who cause the damage.”

In August 2022, a Los Angeles SWAT team and the U.S. Marshals were pursuing a fugitive in North Hollywood. When Carlos heard commotion outside his print shop, he went to the front door to see what was going on. The suspect then grabbed Carlos, threw him to the ground outside the shop and barricaded himself inside.

Carlos waited at a nearby restaurant as the Los Angeles SWAT team raided the business he had built over the previous three decades, causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage. When the smoke cleared, nearly all of Carlos’ printers had been rendered useless, and his walls, windows, and ceiling all had holes blasted through them. Somehow, the fugitive managed to escape.

After the raid, Carlos approached the U.S. Marshals seeking compensation. The Marshals told him to reach out to the city of Los Angeles, because their SWAT team had conducted the raid. Both the city and Carlos’ insurance declined to cover the damage. Out of options, Carlos teamed up with IJ to sue in July 2023.

“I had no problem with the police raiding my shop to get this guy off the streets, but I thought if they destroyed the business I worked so hard to build, they would at least compensate me for it,” said Carlos. “I wanted the Supreme Court to hear this case, not just for me, but for other people who went through the same problem.”

Earlier this year, IJ released a report studying claims for compensation for government destruction of private property. The key findings of the report were that the average claim for compensation caused genuine hardship for innocent property owners and that paying these owners would represent a drop in the bucket of government budgets.

In November 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear a similar IJ case. But in a statement when that case was turned down, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor said that the court would likely need to eventually take up this issue.

The Supreme Court also denied a similar case brought by IJ on behalf of a South Bend, Indiana, woman whose home was raided by a SWAT team looking for a suspect who was not there and had no connection to her family. That case will continue with legal claims under the Indiana state constitution.