A couple cannot sue the town of Marshall for inverse condemnation related to a 2019 flooding incident that left the couple’s rental property uninhabitable. The state Court of Appeals upheld on Wednesday a lower court’s ruling against Carl and Stephanie Firley.
The Firleys argued that Marshall failed to maintain a storm pipe that clogged during the flooding and contributed to the property damage.
“Plaintiffs argue that the trial court erred in concluding that Defendant did not ‘take’ their property at 632 Walnut by failing to adequately maintain the storm pipe,” Judge Thomas Murry wrote for a unanimous three-judge Appeals Court panel. “Both our State Constitution and statutes ‘protect against an uncompensated taking and the fundamental right to just compensation’ against the State government or one of its municipal subsidiaries. But an occupation need not be physical; a municipality may affect a taking by ‘substantial[ly] interfer[ing] with elemental rights growing out of the ownership of the property’ — even if doing so accidentally.”…