“We heard oral argument in this and a related case, McCutchen v. United States, No. 2020-1188, as the cases present materially identical issues. . . . For the same reasons we today affirm the Claims Court’s judgment in the McCutchen case, we affirm the Claims Court’s judgment in the present case.”
The reasoning from McCutchen v. United States is as follows:
“The interest that plaintiffs allege was taken was the interest in continued possession or transferability of their devices. The takings claim depends on plaintiffs having an established property right in continued possession or transferability even against a valid agency implementation of the preexisting statutory bar on possession or transfer. But plaintiffs’ title, which we assume is otherwise valid under state law, was always inherently limited by 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), a very specific statutory prohibition on possession and transfer of certain devices defined in terms of physical operation, together with a congressional authorization of a (here undisputedly) valid agency interpretation of that prohibition. That title-inhering limit means that plaintiffs lacked an established property right in continued possession or transferability. The takings claim therefore fails.”
