Whether courts may treat real property as worthless solely because the owner was not generating positive cash flow at the time of the taking

QUESTION PRESENTED In 1999, petitioners paid millions of dollars to acquire the lease to property designated for aviation use at Dallas Love Field Airport. The next year, they spent another $17 million constructing a state-of-theart terminal, and a few years later they expanded their investment by another $6.5 million. At the time, federal law limited flights for aircraft with over 56 seats from Love Field to destinations in Texas and neighboring states. Petitioners believed that their property was valuable even with those restrictions, especially given the fact that a new generation of regional jets carrying 56 passengers or fewer could service destinations from Dallas to either coast. But they and the market also anticipated that the restrictions would not last, as Congress had already relaxed them once. Petitioners and the market were proven prescient when, in 2006, Congress further eased the restrictions. But rather than enjoy the fruits of their investment, petitioners saw its value wiped out, as the federal law that lifted flight restrictions did so at petitioners’ expense, mandating that petitioners’ terminal be demolished and “never again be used for passenger service.” The Court of Federal Claims found a taking and ordered $133.5 million in just compensation. But the Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the federal government’s taking of property in which petitioners had invested tens of millions of dollars had no economic impact at all. The questions presented are: 1. In assessing whether the government has effected a compensable taking, may courts treat real ii property as worthless simply because the owner was not generating positive cashflow from the property at the time of the taking? 2. In determining whether the taking of property had any economic impact on its owner, may courts ignore reasonable, investment-backed expectations that a regulatory environment is likely to change and, in fact, has been changed by the very law that effects the taking?