Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass'n v. Debenedictus

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1987 United States Supreme Court case

Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass'n v. DeBenedictis, 480 U.S. 470 (1987), is a United States Supreme Court case interpreting the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause . In this case, the court upheld a Pennsylvania statute which limited coal mining causing damage to buildings, dwellings, and cemeteries through subsidence .

Background

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Pennsylvania enacted the Subsidence Act in 1966 "to prevent or minimize subsidence and to regulate its consequences." In other words, the Subsidence Act was designed to prevent the harmful effects that underground mining can have on the surface above. Some examples of coal mine subsidence damage include cracked foundations, sinkholes, and groundwater loss.

In 1982, the Keystone Light Bituminous Coal Association, an association formed by four coal companies, brought an action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. They sought to enjoin the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (DER), Nicholas DeBenedictis, and his lower officers, from enforcing the Bituminous Mine Subsidence and Land Conservation Act (Subsidence Act) and its implementing regulations.

The petitioners challenged two sections of the Subsidence Act. First, they challenged Section 4, which "[P]rohibits mining that causes subsidence damage to three categories of structures . . . : [1.] public buildings and noncommercial buildings generally used by the public; [2.] dwellings used for human habitation; and [3.] cemeteries." Second, the petitioners challenged Section 6 of the Act. This section "[A]uthorizes the DER to revoke a mining permit if the removal of coal causes damage to a structure or area protected by Section 4 and the operator has not . . . [done any of the following within six months: 1.] repaired the damage, [2.] satisfied any claim arising [from the damage], or [3.] deposited a sum equal to the reasonable cost of repair with the DER as security."

In their complaint, the petitioners contended that "Pennsylvania recognizes three separate estates in land: The mineral estate; the surface estate; and the 'support estate.'" All but 10% of the coal to be mined by the petitioners was severed from the surface estates around the turn of the 20th century. However, surface owners generally waived any claims against petitioners or prior coal companies for damages caused by mining.

Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922), the petitioners’ primary argument was that Sections 4 and 6 of the Subsidence Act violated the Takings Clause of the Constitution's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments by taking their property without providing just compensation . They also argued that Section 6 violated the Constitution's Contracts Clause.

The petitioners' main contention was that one restriction imposed by the DER is that "50% of the coal beneath structures protected by § 4" must be left unearthed to support the surface land, and that consequently their "support estate[s] had been entirely destroyed" because they had to leave 50% of the coal beneath the surface in place, so they could only mine the mineral estate while leaving the support estate untouched. In answers to interrogatories, the petitioners claimed that from 1966 to 1982 their land use rights at their 13 coal mines had been restricted to the point of a taking because of the Subsidence Act. As a result, they claimed that they had to leave about 27 million tons of coal in place. Altogether, these mines contained at least 1.46 billion tons of coal. The percentage of coal that had to remain unmined was less than 2% of the petitioners' total coal.

Procedural history

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The District Court held that Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon did not apply and that there was not a taking. Finding "that the Subsidence Act served valid public purposes," the District Court determined that the Act was a legitimate exercise of the state's police power. In response to the petitioners' support estate argument, the District Court found that "[T]he support estate consists of a bundle of rights , including some that were not affected by the Act." In essence, the District Court recognized that the support estate was a separate estate in land, but that the Act did not effect a taking of the whole support estate involved in this case. The District Court also rejected the Contracts Clause claim because the petitioners did not present evidence that the Act "had impaired any contract to which the Commonwealth was a party."

The Court of Appeals[_which?
_] found that there was not a taking and affirmed the holding of the District Court. It also found that Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon did not apply. The Court of Appeals took a different approach to analyzing the support estate than the District Court did and "[C]onsidered the support estate as just one segment of a larger bundle of rights that invariably includes either the surface estate or the mineral estate." So, instead of finding that there were three separate estates in land, the Court of Appeals decided that the support estate was not a separate estate in land. Instead, the support estate was to be included as part of the surface estate or the mineral estate. By combining the support estate with the surface estate or the mineral estate, the petitioners' "bundle of rights" became larger. Therefore, the Court of Appeals found that "'their entire 'bundle' of property rights ha[d] not been destroyed.'" In addition, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's holding concerning the Contracts Clause claim.

Both lower courts cited _Andrus v. Allard _ (1979), a Supreme Court case describing the "bundle of rights" that a property owner possesses. Relying on Andrus, both courts found that the support estate was just a "'strand'" in a larger bundle of rights. According to these courts, the Act had to effect a taking of the combined bundle of the surface estate, support estate, and mineral estate to be deemed a taking.

Majority opinion

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When Keystone was argued before the Supreme Court in 1986, its facts were strikingly similar to the facts of Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon. However, the Court began its opinion by rejecting the petitioners' argument that Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon should control in this case because "[T]he similarities . . . [between the two cases were] far less significant than the differences," and concluded that there was no taking.

Citing prior takings cases, the Court listed two factors that must be considered when evaluating whether a taking has occurred. These factors suggest that a land use regulation will be deemed a taking if it 1) "'does not substantially advance legitimate state interests,'" or 2) "'denies an owner economically viable use of his land.'"

Using the two factors above, the Court found that the petitioners didn't meet their burden of proof in order to establish a taking. The Court found that the Subsidence Act "substantially advanced legitimate state interests" by trying to prevent "a significant threat to the common welfare" and that it wasn't "impossible for petitioners to profitably engage in their business."

According to the Court, the first difference between Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon and this case was that one act benefited a few and the other act benefited many. The Kohler Act challenged in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon was intended to benefit a few private parties, while the Subsidence Act in this case was intended to benefit the general public. The Court stressed that the Kohler Act was not a legitimate exercise of the State's police power because it was only meant to protect "some private landowners' homes." Conversely, the Subsidence Act was a legitimate exercise of the State's police power because it was meant "to protect the public interest in health, the environment, and the fiscal integrity of the area." To be a legitimate exercise of the State's police power, "the nature of the State's action" must protect the general well-being of the community. Regulations protecting the general well-being of the community generally involve health, safety, or morals. In this case, the Court deferred to the Pennsylvania Legislature's finding "that important public interests are served by enforcing a policy that is designed to minimize subsidence in certain areas" because this purpose was "genuine, substantial, and legitimate." Basically, the Court found that the Subsidence Act was meant to protect the general well-being of the community, rather than just a select few in the community, and was an acceptable use of the police power.

Second, the Court pointed out that the two cases are distinguishable because they were decided at different points in time. The Subsidence Act showed that "'[C]ircumstances may so change in time ... as to clothe with such a [public] interest what at other times ... would be a matter of purely private concern.'" Therefore, during the 44 years between the Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon decision and the enactment of the Subsidence Act there was a change in the public's attitude toward regulations affecting private land.

A third difference between the two cases was that the mining being regulated i

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