In this Fifth Amendment case, two farms sued California, alleging that they suffered a per se, physical taking because a state labor regulation permitted union organizers to enter their land three times a day for up to three hours a day 120 days each year. A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit held that there was no per se, physical taking. In the Supreme Court NELF filed an amicus brief in support of the farms, focusing on three Supreme Court cases that had been relied upon by the state defendants here and by the Ninth Circuit. NELF dispelled the confusion that had plagued interpretation of those cases and had permitted them to be used to negate valid takings claims like those here. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the regulation effected per se, physical takings without just compensation. It adopted the same view of the three earlier cases as NELF had advocated, saying of them and similar cases, “The upshot of this line of precedent is that government-authorized invasions of property . . . are physical takings requiring just compensation.”
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