⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

Brandon Fulton seeks payment for horses authorities seized during an animal-cruelty investigation. Criminal charges were later dropped, but he alleges the horses were never returned and he was not paid. He sued the Fulton County Board of Commissioners in Georgia. A federal judge dismissed his claim and refused permission to amend the complaint to sue the county directly under the Constitution. The full Eleventh Circuit is rehearing the appeal en banc, rather than the usual three-judge panel. The prior panel opinion has been vacated. The Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause requires just compensation for private property taken for public use. A cause of action is the legal authorization to bring a particular kind of lawsuit; that is distinct from the underlying constitutional right. Section nineteen eighty-three is a civil-rights statute. Under Monell, local-government liability under that statute requires a connection to an official policy or custom, not merely an employee's wrongdoing. An inverse-condemnation claim is an owner's suit for compensation for an alleged government taking. In a 2024 Texas case, the Supreme Court left the direct-suit question open because state law supplied another route. The Tucker Act comes up as an analogy: it gives a federal claims court jurisdiction over certain money claims against the United States. This case is against a county, not the federal government. Fulton's lawyer will argue that the Takings Clause itself authorizes his claim. The county will argue that statutory and state-law procedures control and Fulton failed to use them properly. It also disputes that the alleged seizure was a compensable taking.

Brandon Fulton v. Fulton County Board of Commissioners (No. 22-12041) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, argued October 20, 2026.