Mountain States Legal Foundation v. Hodel 799 F.2d 1423 (10th Cir. 1987) When the US had partitioned parts of Wyoming into private sections and public lands, it did so in a checkerboard pattern, where every odd section was private and every even section was public. In one of these checkerboard areas in Wyoming, a lot of wild horses lived on the Federal land. They would often stray onto the private land where they would eat up all the grass. Ranchers (led by the MSLF) sued for a writ of mandamus to order the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to get rid of the horses. They also wanted money for damages. The ranchers were not allowed to get rid of the horses themselves because the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (Pub.L. 92-195), made it a crime to "capture, brand, harass, or kill" wild horses or burros on Federal land. But the BLM was supposed to remove the horses form private land if they strayed. The ranchers wanted money because they felt that the wild horses were eating all the grass, so the land wouldn't support as many cattle as it would otherwise have. The ranchers argued that this constituted a taking, and they should be compensated for it under the 5th Amendment. The Trial Court ordered the writ of mandamus, but declined to award any damages to the ranchers. They appealed. The Trial Court found that the BLM's failure to get rid of the horses did not constitute a taking. The Appellate Court affirmed. The Appellate Court found that the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment is only applicable if the government deprives a private landholder of 100% of the value of their land. See Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. (272 U.S. 365 (1926)). In this case, although the Court agreed that the ranchers' land had lost some of its value because of the loss of grass, it hadn't lost 100% of its value and therefore it was not a taking and the Federal government did not need to provide compensation. In general, the Federal government is not liable for damages done by wild animals, even if there is a regulation protecting those wild animals. The ranchers should have known that there were wild animal problems when they bought the land. In addition, the ranchers could have always fenced off their sections if they wanted to keep the wild horses out. See Mackay v. Uinta Development Co. (219 Fed. 116 (8th Cir. 1914)). The Court found that this was a regulatory taking, because it was a Federal regulation that protected the horses. However, an alternate argument would be that this was an actual physical taking of the ranchers' grass. If you think about the problem that way, then the Euclid reasoning would not be applicable. Of course, then the question comes up over who 'owns' the horses. The Federal government would argue that since they didn't own the horses, they were not responsible for physical damage done by the horses. But, the ranchers' weren't allowed to get rid of the horses themselves (see Kleppe v. New Mexico (426 U.S. 529 (1976))), so who is ultimately responsible?