In 2021, Georgia police aircraft destroyed $37,000 worth of legal hemp; six years later, Supreme Court revives grower’s claim, overturning 60-year-old precedent
The Georgia Supreme Court has revived a legal battle over whether the government must compensate property owners when law enforcement operations damage their property, ruling that the state cannot automatically avoid the Georgia Constitution’s just-compensation requirement simply by invoking its “police power.”According to a report by Reason published October 4, the unanimous ruling involves Blue 42 Organics, LLC, a licensed hemp grower whose crops were allegedly destroyed during a Georgia Department of Public Safety (DPS) drug-suppression operation in 2021.
Police aircraft allegedly destroyed $37,000 worth of hemp
According to the Georgia Supreme Court’s opinion, Blue 42 operates a hemp farm in Dahlonega and was properly registered with both the Georgia Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.On July 21, 2021, DPS, acting through the Governor’s Drug Suppression Task Force, conducted a drug-suppression operation in the area. Three helicopters and a single-engine fixed-wing aircraft allegedly flew at such a low altitude over Blue 42’s farm that two rows of legally registered hemp crops were destroyed.The company valued the damaged crops at approximately $37,000. Blue 42 also alleged that the low-flying aircraft harassed cattle on leased grazing land, potentially jeopardizing future lease renewals.Blue 42 subsequently sued DPS, asserting an inverse-condemnation claim under the Georgia Constitution’s Just Compensation Clause. The provision states that private property cannot be “taken or damaged for public purposes” without just and adequate compensation being paid.However, a trial court dismissed the company’s claim after accepting DPS’s argument that the damage occurred while the agency was exercising its police powers. The Georgia Court of Appeals later upheld that decision, effectively preventing Blue 42 from pursuing compensation.
Supreme Court rejects blanket police-power exemption
The Georgia Supreme Court disagreed with the lower courts.Writing for the unanimous court, Chief Justice Peterson said the state’s police power is extremely broad, covering government actions intended to protect public health, safety, morality and welfare. But the court concluded that this power cannot create a blanket exemption from the constitutional obligation to compensate owners whose private property is damaged for a public purpose.The court wrote that the Constitution’s protection of private property rights would be rendered “an empty one” if the state could avoid paying compensation simply by invoking its police power.The justices specifically rejected the reasoning of McCoy v. Sanders, a 1966 Georgia case that had been used to support the idea that property damage resulting from an exercise of police power did not require compensation.In McCoy, police had drained a landowner’s pond while searching for the body of a murder victim. The government was not required to compensate the owner for the resulting damage because the action was considered an exercise of police power.Nearly six decades later, the Georgia Supreme Court concluded that the broad rule established by McCoy went too far. The court formally overruled the relevant portion of that precedent.
Court preserves narrow exceptions
The ruling does not mean that every instance of government property damage during police or emergency operations will automatically require compensation.The court identified two established categories in which the government may remain exempt: abatement of nuisances and destruction of property in cases of urgent necessity.The justices cited the example of a government destroying a building to prevent a fire from spreading. Such emergency action can fall within the narrow exception to the compensation requirement.But the court found that Blue 42’s allegations did not establish either exception at the motion-to-dismiss stage. The justices therefore reversed the lower court’s decision and remanded the case for further proceedings.That means Blue 42 has not yet won a $37,000 judgment. Instead, the company has regained the opportunity to pursue its claim for compensation in court.
Ruling could affect broader property-rights disputes
The Georgia case comes amid a wider legal debate over whether innocent property owners should receive compensation when police damage or destroy their property while pursuing suspects.Similar disputes have involved homeowners and businesses in other states. Reason has previously reported on cases involving Indiana homeowner Amy Hadley, California business owner Carlos Pena and Texas homeowner Vicki Baker, whose properties were damaged during law-enforcement operations involving other people.The issue has also reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2024, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, said in connection with Baker’s case that the question of whether a police-power exception exists under the Takings Clause was “an important and complex question” that would benefit from further development in lower courts before the Supreme Court intervened.Baker later prevailed under the Texas Constitution, according to Reason, adding another state-level development to the broader debate over government responsibility for property damaged during law-enforcement operations.
