Abstract
This Article considers the U.S. Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, which extended the application of the Court's framework for evaluating the constitutionality of land use exactions (known as the Nollan/Dolan test). The majority of the Court relied heavily on the unconstitutional conditions doctrine, explaining that this doctrine formed the basis not only for the Nollan/Dolan framework but also for the extension of that framework to Koontz's new factual setting. Four members of the Court dissented. Although the dissenting justices seemingly agreed with several of the majority's propositions, they vigorously opposed the manner in which the majority applied those propositions. Although Koontz might be viewed as just another in a long line of cases that make up the messy jurisprudence of regulatory takings and unconstitutional conditions, the primary thesis of this Article is that Koontz in fact provides a key to unlocking the Court's exactions framework. Relying on my prior work with Brannon Denning, this Article posits that both regulatory takings and the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions constitute anti-evasion doctrines by which the Court seeks to fill enforcement gaps left open by its prior constitutional decision rules. Inasmuch as land use exactions lie at the intersection of these two doctrinal areas, one would expect to find that anti-evasion notions play a large role in the Court's exactions decisions. And indeed, both the majority and the dissent in Koontz invoked the anti evasion characteristics of the Nollan/Dolan test in support of their analytical positions in that case.
Recommended Citation
Michael B. Kent Jr.,
Viewing the Supreme Court's Exactions Cases Through the Prism of Anti-Evasion,
87
U. Colo. L. Rev.
827
(2016).
Available at:
https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/lawreview/vol87/iss3/3