Real Estate & Property Law

Federal Circuit: Takings Claims By Navajo Nation Barred By Statute Of Limitations

By Robert Thomas

In Navajo Nation v. United States, No. 2010-5036 (Jan. 10, 2011), the U.S. Court of Federal Claims concluded that the Nation's claim that a development moratorium resulted in a taking was barred by the six year statute of limitations.

The Nation asserted that a 1934 federal statute created a property interest in an area known as the "Bennett Freeze area," and that the federal government took that right when it precluded the Nation from any development within the area. The facts and legal background of the case are somewhat convoluted, and you can read the opinion if you are interested, but here's the essence of the court's analysis:

Here, the Navajo Nation's takings claim, if any, accrued when the United States precluded it from developing land within the Bennett Freeze area without Hopi Tribe ap-proval. This was the only governmental action that served to restrict any right the Nation may have had, pursuant to the 1934 Act, to exclusive control of property within the 1934 Reservation, and it is therefore the only action which could even arguably form the basis for a valid takings claim.

...

When Congress enacted the 1980 Amendment, it precluded the Navajo Nation from undertaking any development within the Bennett Freeze area unless the Hopi Tribe gave written consent. This was the date of the last governmental action that served to restrict the Navajo's right to develop property within the 1934 Reservation. Although the Hopi Tribe did not decide to withhold consent for all Navajo Nation construction projects until August 1982, for purposes of determining when a takings claim accrues "it is necessary . . . to look to the nature and timing of the governmental action that constituted the alleged taking."

Slip op. at 12-13 (quoting Fallini v. United States, 56 F.3d 1378, 1383 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (emphasis added)). The court rejected the claims that (1) the Hopi Nation was acting as an agent of the federal government (slip op. at 14-15), (2) that the Navajo Nation "knew, long before the enactment of the 1980 Amendment, that it had no right to exclusive control of property within the Bennett Freeze area," and thus its claim arose when it knew the claim existed (slip op. at 15-18), and (3) the claim did not arise until the 2006 settlement between the Navajo and the Hopi Nations that required each to obtain the other's approval before development of land (slip op at 18-20).

Full post as published by inversecondemnation on January 27, 2011 (boomark / email).