As police battle a Colorado criminal on the loose, the home of innocent bystanders is destroyed. City of Greenwood Village to owners: rough luck, we know, but we don’t owe you anything for that loss. Or might the Supreme Court want to view that as a taking for which fair compensation is owed under the Fifth Amendment? Ilya Shapiro, Trevor Burrus, and Michael Collins on the Cato Institute’s certiorari amicus brief in Lech v. Jackson; Ilya Somin (yes, the oft-confused Ilyas were both involved).
3 Comments
Why are you involved in a Laurel & Hardy movie?
Bob
The criminal who was shooting at police should be the one who has to pay.
Usually in these cases, the criminal has nothing to pay with.
One of Churchill’s greatest ideas in WW2 was government insurance for damage from Nazi bombing. Under common law, bombing victims were entitled to nothing, and Treasury officials bemoaned a flood of red ink in 1940-1941. But Churchill recognized that society as a whole was better able than individuals to afford catastrophic losses suffered in the common cause.
(The bombing insurance would make a profit in 1942-1943, but had to start paying out again for V1s and V2s in 1944.)
Similarly for the Colorado homeowners: the collective taxpayers of Greenwood Village are better able to bear the costs of a destroyed home than an innocent homeowner. If the cost seems too much, then the town should order their police to take more cautious tactics. Or the State of Colorado could compensate for service-related damage by local cops.