After Texas City Refused To Pay For Destroying Her Home, Woman Wins Nearly $60,000

After police officers from McKinney, Texas, surrounded and assaulted Vicki Baker’s house to subdue a dangerous fugitive who had barricaded himself inside, the city refused to pay for any of the damage. That forced Vicki—a retiree and cancer survivor—to exhaust her retirement savings, even though she had done nothing wrong.

But last month, in a landmark constitutional victory, a federal jury found that McKinney must compensate Vicki nearly $60,000. Incredibly, that marked the first time a federal court had ever ruled that the Fifth Amendment requires the government to compensate innocent owners who had their property destroyed by law enforcement.

Critically, Vicki didn’t challenge the actions of the SWAT team raid. Instead, she asserted that as an innocent homeowner, she should not have to bear the cost.

“My priority has always been to make sure that cities like McKinney cannot treat other people the way I’ve been treated,” Vicki said in a statement after the verdict came out. “I expect today’s victory to send a message to governments across the country that they have to pay for what they break.”

After living in her McKinney home for years, in 2019, Vicki decided to move out to Montana to retire. While in Montana, her daughter, Deanna Cook, was staying at the home and preparing it for its final sale, which had been on the market for over a year.

But those plans changed dramatically on July 25, 2020. Wesley Little, a former handyman, had kidnapped a 15-year-old girl and showed up at Vicki and Deanna’s house, looking for a place to spend the night.

Faced with a heavily armed hostage taker, Deanna acquiesced. She convinced Little she needed to run some errands, letting her escape the house. Once safe, she immediately called the police.

Officers soon surrounded the house. After hours of negotiation, Little released the girl unharmed. But he still refused to leave. That’s when police officers drew up plans to end the standoff by force.

The SWAT team drove a BearCat armored personnel carrier over the fence and through the front door, detonated explosives to forcibly enter the garage, and launched more than 30 tear-gas grenades through the windows, walls, and roof. By the time officers found Little, he had already taken his own life.

The next day, with tear gas still lingering, Deanna had to wear a gas mask before she could safely enter the house. It was devastating. Almost every window was smashed and needed to be replaced. A toxic film of tear gas residue slathered the interior. The front door, the garage door, blinds, fences, floors, appliances, and ceiling fans all had to be replaced. A Hazmat remediation crew had to safely dispose of everything in her house. Even worse, Deanna’s dog (who was trapped inside during the entire standoff) was rendered permanently blind and deaf after the explosions. All told, the raid ended with more than $50,000 in damage.

The buyers (understandably) backed out of the deal. As is common practice, Vicki’s homeowners’ insurance policy didn’t cover any damage caused directly by police. The insurance company did, however, agree to “cover the cost of damages caused directly by Little—specifically, the cleanup of his body,” Judge Amos Mazzant wrote in a macabre footnote.

Shortly after the raid, Vicki filed a property damage claim with the city. McKinney denied the claim entirely, because “the officers have immunity while in the course and scope of their job duties.” In response, the Institute for Justice filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Vicki, arguing the City’s refusal to pay for damaging her house violated both the U.S. and Texas Constitutions.

“Pursuing a fugitive is a legitimate government interest,” said IJ Attorney Will Aronin, “but if the government deliberately destroys innocent people’s property in the process, those people must be compensated.”

Under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, private property can’t be taken by the government “without just compensation.” Typically, the clause is central to claims involving eminent domain, which allows the government to take private property for a “public use,” like bridges or roads.

But the City of McKinney instead claimed that it was “categorically exempt from the Takings Clause,” arguing that the Fifth Amendment didn’t apply to uses of its so-called “police power.” This includes not only law enforcement actions, but the general ability to pass laws for the public interest.

Since the SWAT team raid was a “legitimate exercise of the city’s police power,” McKinney said it didn’t owe Vicki a dime. Similar arguments had recently been adopted by the South Dakota Supreme Court and the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (which governs Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming).

Fortunately, Judge Mazzant firmly rejected this loophole. If the court adopted the city’s arguments, Vicki’s “constitutional protections under the Fifth Amendment would disappear,” the judge ruled. “It cannot be the case that public good could be done at the cost of the individual.”

Not only would this be “fundamentally unfair,” Judge Mazzant noted, this argument is “inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s Takings Clause jurisprudence.” In Knick v. Township of Scott, the High Court expressly declared that “a property owner has a Fifth Amendment entitlement to compensation as soon as the government takes [their] property without paying for it.” Or as the Supreme Court succinctly put it in a decision from just last year, “The government must pay for what it takes.”

Citing those cases as precedent, Judge Mazzant ruled in favor of Vicki. Afterwards, the case was then sent to a jury to determine how much she was owed in compensation for her losses.

“Respecting private property means the government has to pay for the property it destroys, and that’s true whether the government official destroying your home has a business card from the roads department or the police department,” said Institute for Justice President and General Counsel Scott Bullock. “Today’s ruling makes all Americans more secure in their property and in the homes they have worked so hard to own.”