In one of the first cases it heard in its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court plunged into the murky task of determining whether damage caused by federally directed flooding is a "taking" of private property.
The court heard oral arguments on Oct. 3 in Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. U.S. The commission contends that water releases from an Army Corps of Engineers dam in six consecutive years destroyed valuable timber. The commission says the flooding is a property "taking," which under the Fifth Amendment would require compensation. But the federal government disagrees, contending that the flooding was temporary and that there was no taking.