# Armstrong v. United States > Supreme Court of the United States · June 27, 1960 · 364 U.S. 40 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422050 ## Case - **Full name:** ARMSTRONG Et Al. v. UNITED STATES - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** June 27, 1960 - **Citations:** 364 U.S. 40; 80 S. Ct. 1563; 4 L. Ed. 2d 1554; 1960 U.S. LEXIS 1860 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Harlan - **Judges:** Black, Harlan, Stewart - **Cited by:** 1,009 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422050 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding that building material suppliers were entitled to compensation where a shipbuilder's contract with the government specifically showed that the shipbuilder retained title to the uncompleted ships during their construction, because the suppliers' lien interests in the bu… - holding that the inability of a subcontractor to enforce an otherwise valid material- *1074 men’s lien under state law against the United States after the United States acquired title to certain boats from the general contractor under a contractual default clause resulted in a… - explaining that “the Government for its own advantage destroyed the value of the [plaintiff’s] liens, something that the Government could do because its property was not subject to suit, but which no private purchaser could have done” - explaining that the prohibition on takings “without just compensation was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole” - finding the government liable for a taking where the government’s sovereign status rendered it immune from suit by third parties holding liens on property that passed to the government by virtue of the terms of a contract ## Opinion text Mr. Justice Harlan, whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Clark join, dissenting. I agree that petitioners had valid liens on the uncompleted work and supplies at the time the property was transferred to the Government, and that such liens represented compensable property interests within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. But the Fifth Amendment renders the Government liable only if there was a “taking” by it of such interests. I cannot conclude, as the Court so readily does, that simply because the value of those liens was “destroyed” there was a “taking” of petitioners’ property. • *50 As the Court concedes, not every governmental act which ultimately destroys property rights constitutes a compensable taking of those rights. We are not here dealing with a situation in which the United States has condemned the full fee interest in property, thus purporting to extinguish all claims therein. In such a case, it may well be that lienholders are entitled to compensation for the value of their interests. See Thibodo v. United States, 187 F. 2d 249 ; cf. United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U. S. 373, 377-378 . In this instance, however, the Government has not exercised its power of eminent domain with the intent and purpose of extinguishing petitioners’ liens; indeed it has not exercised its power of eminent domain at all. All it has done is to exercise its undoubted power to contract and to acquire title to the property, the consequent effect of which is to render the liens unenforceable because of the independent principle of sovereign immunity.' The very nature of the doctrine of sovereign immunity precludes regarding its interposition as a Fifth Amendment “taking.” It seems to me that a Court which, having established this immunity, then declares that the Government must pay for exercising it, is effectively negativing it. I would affirm. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422050. Public record. Not legal advice.