E. B. Weiss v. R. C. Lehman and Wayne Larue

The sole issue presented by this appeal is whether a Bivens-type damage remedy was properly implied against defendant Lehman, a Forest Service employee, under the Fifth Amendment due process and just compensation clauses. We affirm.

I. FACTS

Lehman appeals an adverse judgment in a suit against him for damages for destruction of certain personal property located on an unpatented mining claim on federal land. The claim had been leased in 1967-68 to Continental Rare Metals, which contracted with Weiss to construct a dredge for a mining operation. When Continental’s lease expired, it did not remove its equipment, which reverted to the mine claimants under the terms of the lease. Certain of the “scrap” metal and parts were later traded to Weiss by one of the mine claimants in exchange for a lease on a dredge at another mining site. Weiss’s interest in the claim was unrecorded.

Lehman, as a U.S. Forest Service employee, drew up a plan to dispose of the property on the mining claim in 1973. Under Lehman’s direction, Forest Service workers buried or removed most of the property on the claim and closed the access road.

Weiss’s suit against Lehman was tried to a jury on the issue of…