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Barron v. Baltimore

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Barron v. Mayor of Baltimore

Supreme Court of the United States

Decided January Term, 1833

Full case name:	John Barron, survivor of John Craig, for the use of Luke Tiernan, Executor of John Craig v. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore

Citations:	32 U.S. 243; 8 L. Ed. 672

Prior history:	Accepted on writ of error to the Court of Appeals for the Western Shore of the State of Maryland.

Holding

State governments are not bound by the Fifth Amendment's requirement for just compensation in cases of eminent domain.

Court membership

Chief Justice: John Marshall
Associate Justices: William Johnson, Gabriel Duvall, Joseph Story, Smith Thompson, John McLean, Henry Baldwin

Case opinions

Majority by: Marshall

Overruled by

Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925)

Barron v. Mayor of Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 32 (1833) established a precedent on whether the United States Bill of Rights could be applied to state governments. John Barron owned a profitable wharf in the Baltimore harbor. He sued the mayor of Baltimore for damages, claiming that when the city had diverted the flow of streams while engaging in street construction, it had created mounds of sand and earth near his wharf making the water too shallow for most vessels. The trial court awarded Barron damages of $4500, but the appellate court reversed. The Supreme Court decided that the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, specifically the fifth Amendment's guarantee that government takings of private property for public use require just compensation, are restrictions on the federal government alone. The case is particularly important in terms of American government because it stated that the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights did not restrict the state governments. This decision concerned the fifth Amendment only; some legal scholars feel that the Court's decision in this matter was too broad, and that the justices did not truly intend state governments to be exempted from the entire Bill of Rights. However, Supreme Court decisions from the early 20th century onward have used the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to apply most of the Bill of Rights to the states through the process and doctrine of incorporation. Therefore, Barron has been overturned in a sense.