One word is conspicuously absent from the Federal Circuit’s opinion in Alpine PCS, Inc. v. United States, No. 17-1029 (Jan. 2, 2017): “exhaustion.”
We all know that exhaustion of administrative remedies isn’t usually required before bringing a constitutional takings claim, but make no mistake — despite the absence of the word in the opinion, the rationale of the court was that the property owner could not bring a takings claim under the Tucker Act in the Court of Federal Claims because it had not exhausted its administrative remedies.
The property owner asserted that telecommunications licenses it possessed had been taken, and the federal government breached a contract, when the licenses were cancelled after it didn’t make required payments. The CFC dismissed the action for lack of jurisdiction, concluding the federal Communications Act provided a comprehensive statutory scheme under which Alpine could have raised its contract claim, thus depriving the
