Estate of E. Wayne Hage v. United States

Issue: (1) Whether governmental agency interference with a person’s ability to access and beneficially use his vested water right under threat of prosecution, in part by requiring a permit not authorized or contemplated by any statute or regulation and in derogation of the very nature of the property right, is properly analyzed as a per se taking under Loretto v. Teleprompter CATV Corp. rather than as a regulatory taking under Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City; (2) whether the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management can alter the congressional grant or recognition of water rights and rights-of-way pursuant to the Act of July 26, 1866 by administratively redefining the scope and purpose of the easements or by superimposing a special use permitting requirement for their maintenance; and (3) whether the fencing of water sources in which Petitioners had stockwater and other rights, intended to and which was sufficient to prevent livestock access to the source for at least a period of time, is a physical taking subject to Loretto and Arkansas Game and Fish Commission v. United States, without regard to whether some residual amount of water could escape.