Supreme Court to hear case against McKinney police

Nearly four years after a McKinney Police SWAT team destroyed her home and the city refused to compensate her, former McKinney resident Vicki Baker is taking her fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It is critical that the court hear Baker’s case and make clear that the government must compensate innocent people when it destroys their property.

On a fateful day in July 2020, a fugitive entered Baker’s home while she was not home. The fugitive barricaded himself inside the house, leading to a standoff with McKinney police, who searched the home. Estimated damage was $60,000, and the person who was contractually obligated to purchase Baker’s home understandably backed out of the deal.

To make matters worse, Baker quickly discovered that her insurance, like most home insurance policies, did not cover “acts of government.” When she asked the city for compensation, the city refused. Baker was left with the damages, even though she had done nothing wrong.

All reasonable people understand that it is a legitimate job of the police to take a violent criminal off the streets. And sometimes the police damage the private property of innocent people in the process. But the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the government to pay “just compensation” when it destroys a person’s private property for a public good. McKinney’s refusal to compensate Baker is simply unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court should make that clear.

The city has for years relied on the theory that government actions taken under the “police power” are somehow different from other government actions and therefore do not require compensation for victims. Under this theory, the government would have to compensate someone if it took away his land to build a highway, but not if it razed his house in pursuit of a fugitive. This argument is absurd because the cost of a public good should be borne by the public, not by an unfortunate individual.

In March 2021, Baker teamed up with my public affairs law firm, the Institute for Justice, to sue the city. Since then, Baker has been on an upward trajectory. Lower courts ruled that the city was “liable for a taking” under both the U.S. and Texas Constitutions and that Baker was entitled to nearly $60,000 in damages. But when the city appealed, an appeals court panel overturned the ruling, finding that McKinney’s actions were a “compensable taking under the Fifth Amendment.”

On June 28, Baker and the Institute of Justice will file a petition with the Supreme Court, asking the justices to hear their case. In June 2020, the Supreme Court declined to hear a similar case on behalf of the Lech family in Greenwood Village, Colorado. But since then, more stories have emerged of similar raids where innocent people were denied compensation, so now is the perfect time for the court to hear such a case.

A ruling in Baker’s favor would have far-reaching implications for her individual case. Small business owner Carlos Peña is facing a similar legal battle in Los Angeles after a SWAT team destroyed his printing business while hunting for a wanted criminal. In South Bend, Indiana, Amy Hadley watched in horror as a SWAT team searched her home to find a criminal who had never been there, she said.

The cases of Baker, Peña and Hadley all have much in common. None of the three was ever suspected of wrongdoing. None of the three provided shelter to the fugitives. And all three were not provided with insurance coverage by their insurance companies or by the agency responsible for the SWAT team’s destruction.

It’s time for the Supreme Court to make clear that the same rule applies to government as to everyone else: If you break it, you pay for it.

Jeffrey Redfern is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice and has been representing Vicki Baker since her home was vandalized by McKinney police.

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