An Indiana woman whose home sustained severe damage during a police raid set in motion by a faulty investigation is not legally entitled to compensation, a federal court ruled this week, in yet another case that asked what innocent people are owed when the government destroys their property in pursuit of public safety.
In June 2022, a group of law enforcement officers arrived at Amy Hadley’s South Bend home, where they launched 30 tear gas canisters, smashed windows, ransacked furniture, destroyed security cameras, ripped down a panel and a fan, and punched holes in the walls. They were searching for a suspect, John Parnell Thomas, who they believed, based on his IP address, had accessed the internet from Hadley house. They would not find him, however, because he had never been there.
In addition to the structural damage, Hadley’s personal possessions, like her clothing and beds, were ruined by the tear gas. She and her son slept in her car for several days after the raid.
Yet her luck would continue to sour. After Hadley asked the government to compensate her for $16,000 in damages, it came back with a strange response: No. In that vein, she joined a growing list of innocent people whose property was damaged by law enforcement, only to be told they must shoulder the financial burden of that individually. (Many insurance policies explicitly refuse to reimburse damage caused by the government.)
So, she sued. Such suits primarily hinge on one question: Does the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment—which promises that the government cannot take private property without providing “just compensation”—apply when the government is exercising its “police power”?
Several federal courts have answered in the negative.
That includes the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which heard Hadley’s case. “The Fifth Amendment does not require the state to compensate for property damage resulting from police executing a lawful search warrant,” wrote Judge Joshua Kolar for the unanimous panel, relying on Johnson v. Manitowoc County, a 2011 precedent from the court. “That is precisely what happened here: the damage Hadley suffered happened because police executed a lawful search warrant in her home.”
Cases with similarly situated plaintiffs have worked their way through the courts in recent years. Leo Lech’s $580,000 family home in Greenwood Village, Colorado, was condemned and demolished after police effectively destroyed it while pursuing a suspect who had broken in and barricaded himself inside. The city gave him $5,000. Los Angeles business owner Carlos Pena saw his printing shop and equipment ruined, and his livelihood crippled, in the same scenario: A fugitive, unrelated to Pena, broke in while trying to evade police. The government declined to pay him damages, which exceed $60,000; a ruling on the matter is forthcoming from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Whether or not this interpretation of the law—that a takings claim is foreclosed if property is destroyed in the context of police power—will survive in the long term is an open question. The Supreme Court declined to weigh in last year on a petition submitted by Vicki Baker, whose Texas home and possessions were ruined by police in their attempt to coax out a fugitive who had hidden inside. But two justices signaled they may consider the issue in the future. The relationship between the Takings Clause and police power “is an important and complex question,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a statement joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, “that would benefit from further percolation in the lower courts prior to this Court’s intervention.”
So what’s next for Hadley? Her attorneys at the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, said they plan to continue pursuing the case, both in state court and with a request for a rehearing en banc, in which the full 7th Circuit—as opposed to a three-judge panel—would reconsider the matter.
The decision this week included an additional interesting nugget. Hadley “could have sued police alleging they violated the Fourth Amendment by executing their search warrant unreasonably,” wrote Kolar. “But she did not. And though she would have had to overcome a qualified-immunity defense, that burden is not insurmountable.”
Perhaps. But while qualified immunity—the legal doctrine that dooms such suits unless a plaintiff can prove the government’s alleged constitutional violation was “clearly established” at the time of the offense—is not insurmountable, it is difficult to circumvent. That may be especially relevant here when considering that the plaintiff in Johnson, the precedent the 7th Circuit relied on to reject Hadley’s claim, primarily lost his suit on Fourth Amendment grounds.
