A landowner in Brandywine, Maryland, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his lawsuit against Prince George’s County, which barred him from digging a temporary well and sewers as he built a rural retirement home.
Garnell Wells wants the high court to overturn two lower-court rulings that found he could not sue until he first asked the County Council to redesignate his land for a nonexistent public system — a legal requirement in Maryland that most federal courts don’t uphold.
According to his petition, Mr. Wells purchased the vacant lot in 1978 as a future retirement spot. In 2019, he spent $40,000 to apply for a waiver to build temporary water and sewage service for his planned house, rather than spend a fortune on pipes to connect to the nearest public lines.
“There are no public utilities nearby and connecting to the closest available location would cost over $2 million,” the petition states. “That is not a viable option for a single-family home.”
The county Department of Permitting, Inspections and Enforcement’s decision that he could not receive the permit until he applied for public access also blocked him from suing in state court.
The petition notes that even if Mr. Wells obtained the two required council votes, they would let him connect only to any water service the county might build one day — not build the interim system that a 2018 county waiver plan allowed for rural lots.
Prince George’s County officials did not respond by deadline to several requests seeking comment.
Mr. Wells filed his lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Maryland in 2023. It argues that the county deprived him of his Fifth Amendment right to just compensation for his property by rendering it unusable.
The district court dismissed Mr. Wells’ lawsuit in 2024, leading him to challenge the ruling at the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Last February, the 4th Circuit upheld the district court’s ruling. It denied his petition to rehear the case a month later.
“The government cannot put unreasonable conditions on any citizens’ access to a courtroom,” said Jon Houghton, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, a public-interest law firm representing Mr. Wells pro bono. “Every American has the right to challenge violations of their constitutional rights, not just the ones local officials find it convenient to respect.”
He said the 4th Circuit’s ruling supports a worrying trend in recent federal jurisprudence that “systematically disfavors property owners and relegates property rights to second-class status.”
The foundation expects the Supreme Court to consider the petition this fall.
Filed Thursday, the petition notes that federal benches in Illinois, Florida, Georgia and Wisconsin also “require a property owner to first seek legislative change” before going to court in a land-use dispute.
But it also points out that most jurisdictions do not require this test — including Ohio, Virginia, California, Michigan, Hawaii, New York and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Constitutional law experts say it’s unclear whether the Supreme Court will take the case — and where justices will land on the issue if it intervenes.
“It’s a bit premature to opine,” Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, said in an email. “I would wait to see what amicus briefs are filed and if the Court calls for a response.”
