Are police responsible for damaging home to oust suspect? Sotomayor and Gorsuch see important issue
“If police can destroy my home and leave me with the bill, it can happen to anyone,” said Texas homeowner Vicki Baker. (Photo from the Institute for Justice’s Nov. 25 press release)
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to decide whether police must compensate a Texas homeowner for damages to property incurred while officers tried to oust a kidnapping suspect from a home that he entered while on the run.
The cert petition “raises a serious question,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a statement respecting the cert denial. The issue is “whether the takings clause permits the government to destroy private property without paying just compensation, as long as the government had no choice but to do so.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch joined Sotomayor’s statement.
The homeowner, Vicki Baker, was awarded about $60,000 for damages to her home before a federal appeals court overturned the verdict. She is disappointed by the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case, according to a Nov. 25 press release by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, which is representing Baker.
“If police can destroy my home and leave me with the bill, it can happen to anyone,” Baker said in the press release.
The fugitive barricaded himself in Baker’s McKinney, Texas, home, where he had once worked as a handyman, in July 2020. He had kidnapped a 15-year-old girl. Baker’s daughter, who was in the home preparing it for sale, left the home and called police after the fugitive and the teenager entered.
The suspect released the girl but remained in the house after police arrived. Police launched tear gas grenades into the home, broke down the front and garage doors with explosives, and used a tanklike vehicle to bulldoze the backyard fence. The suspect killed himself before police entered.
None of the damage to the home was covered by insurance. Policies typically do not cover damage caused by acts of the government, Sotomayor explained in a footnote. The city of McKinney, Texas, refused to compensate Baker.
Baker’s dog was left permanently blind and deaf as a result of the explosions. Baker had to replace the front and garage doors, the fence, floors, plumbing and windows. All of Baker’s personal property was destroyed, including an antique doll collection.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans ruled against Baker. The appeals court held that the takings clause does not require compensation when it is “objectively necessary” for officers to damage property in an active emergency to prevent imminent harm to people.
In her statement, Sotomayor noted that the outcome would have been different if the city had razed Baker’s home to build a public park. In that case, Baker “undoubtedly would be entitled to compensation,” she wrote.
Precedent suggests that there may be a necessity exception to the takings clause when destruction of a property is inevitable, as in the case of firefighters destroying a building to stop a fire from spreading, Sotomayor said.
“These cases do not resolve Baker’s claim, however, because the destruction of her property was necessary but not inevitable,” Sotomayor wrote. “Whether the inevitable-destruction cases should extend to this distinct context remains an open question.”
The issue in Baker’s case “is an important and complex question that would benefit from further percolation in the lower courts prior to this court’s intervention,” Sotomayor said.
The Institute for Justice plans to continue representing Baker as she seeks compensation under the Texas Constitution.
