Supreme Court Imposes Statute of Limitations on Federal Property Disputes

Supreme Court Imposes Statute of Limitations on Federal Property Disputes

8 January 2008 · No Comments

Seen in the Wall Street Journal (subscriber link):

The Supreme Court on Tuesday imposed a six-year deadline for suing the federal government in property disputes.

The justices ruled 7-2 that a company waited too long to complain in court that the government took the firm’s property. The decision came in a lawsuit by the John R. Sand & Gravel Co. of Lapeer County, Mich., which sought compensation for the loss of some of the land it had leased from the property owners.[...]

In the 1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency began blocking access to portions of the property because the agency was overseeing the cleanup of a landfill under the federal Superfund law. The owners of the 158-acre site in Metamora Township, Mich., had used part of the property for a landfill for tens of thousands of drums of toxic industrial waste.

The reason this article caught my attention is because of recent events on the Great Plains, where a Lakota organization claims to be reasserting its independence, and has threatened to place liens against much of five states as inappropriately taken property.

Depending on how broad a scope the six year statute of limitations opinion has, I suppose that there may now be legal precedent to argue that the Lakota declaration and liens might be many years too late.

Tags: Lakota Independence · Litigation · Supreme Court · ·