Emergency action

Patty Salkin (Albany) describes a modern case similar to the claims following the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 in her Law of the Land blog, "Second Circuit Holds Village Did Not Violate the Constitution by Tearing Down Building Damaged by Fire":

An old hotel was badly damaged in a fire.  The next morning, a team of contractors acting under the direction of the Village Board of Trustees demolished most of what was left of the building.  A television station, which owned the building, and related individuals filed a Section 1983 suit, alleging that their due process rights and rights against unlawful seizure had been violated, and that the demolition had been an unlawful taking of private property without due compensation.  The district court dismissed the substantive due process and Fifth Amendment claims and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claim.  On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed, holding that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments allowed the Village to tear down the building given that it was an emergency situation and that even if less drastic options were available, such a decision was not arbitrary or an abuse of discretion.  The Court noted that the plaintiffs failed to produce evidence sufficient to create a genuine dispute concerning whether defendants abused their discretion in determining that an emergency existed ...

EMM