Georgia’s highest court ruled that the state cannot dodge paying for private property it damages just by saying police were doing their job.
Story Highlights
- Low-flying police aircraft on a drug patrol destroyed about $37,000 of a licensed hemp farm’s crop, the farm says.
- The state argued that its “police power” meant it owed nothing.
- The court said police can skip paying only in a true emergency or when removing a public nuisance.
- The Georgia Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, reversing lower courts that had thrown out the farm’s claim.
What Happened on the Farm
In July 2021, three police helicopters and a fixed-wing plane flew low over the fields of Blue 42 Organics, a licensed hemp farm near Dahlonega. The flights were part of a drug-suppression exercise by the Governor’s Drug Suppression Task Force, a state team that targets illegal drugs. Hemp is a legal cousin of marijuana, grown for fiber, oils and other products. The farm had logged its field locations with the state, as the law requires.
The farm says the rotor wash, the powerful blast of air pushed down by a helicopter’s blades, and the wind from the plane’s propeller flattened two rows of plants. It put the loss at about $37,000. The Georgia Department of Public Safety argued it did not have to pay. Its claim rested on “police power,” the broad authority the state uses to protect public safety. A trial court agreed and dismissed the case, and the Court of Appeals upheld that.
What the Court Decided
The Georgia Constitution says the government must pay “just and adequate” compensation, meaning a fair price, when it takes or damages private property for public use. Chief Justice Nels S.D. Peterson, who wrote the opinion, said that promise would mean little if the state could escape it by pointing to police work. “The Constitution’s promise to protect private property rights would be an empty one,” the opinion said. The court found the state “offers no limiting principle” for its claim.
The justices kept two narrow exceptions. The state need not pay when it destroys property in a case of “urgent necessity,” such as tearing down a building to stop a fire from spreading. It also need not pay when it abates a nuisance, meaning it removes something that is itself a danger to the public. The state did not argue that either exception applied to a routine flight over a legal farm. All justices who took part joined the ruling; one was disqualified and did not take part.
Sixty Years of Precedent Set Aside
The ruling breaks with a 1966 Georgia Court of Appeals case, McCoy v. Sanders. In that case, police drained a landowner’s pond while searching for a murder victim’s body, and the court said no payment was owed. For about 60 years, that case let the state point to police power and walk away from the bill. The National Hemp Association, a trade group for hemp growers, backed the farm in a brief to the court.
The ruling revives the farm’s lawsuit but does not award it any money. Whether the flights caused the loss, and how much is owed, will be settled as the case goes forward. The ruling rejects the idea that police involvement alone wipes out the state’s duty to pay. For Georgia farmers, homeowners and small business owners, the message is plain: when the state breaks something outside a real emergency, the Constitution’s promise of fair payment still stands.
Sources:
thegeorgiademocrat.com, amp.insurancejournal.com, claimsjournal.com, gasupreme.us
