United States v. Commodore Park, Inc.

The United States dredged a tidewater navigable bay and deposited the dredged materials in a navigable arm of the bay called Mason Creek, thereby destroying its navigability, and impairing certain benefits alleged to inhere in the proximity of the land to a navigable tidewater creek. The broad question presented is whether the Fifth Amendment requires the government to compensate an owner of residential property contiguous to the creek, whose fast lands, though not physically invaded, were decreased in market value.

Commodore Park, Inc., an owner of lands on the creek about a mile away from…