A lawsuit brought by a hemp farm against the Georgia Department of Public Safety can proceed after a decision by the Georgia Supreme Court overturned lower court rulings and sent the case back to the trial court for further consideration.
The case involves Blue 42 Organics, LLC, the Georgia Department of Public Safety, property rights, a drug suppression operation, and a lack of responsibility claimed on the basis of “police power.”
Background
Blue 42 Organics, LLC, which operates a hemp farm in Dahlonega, GA, is a licensed and registered hemp farm approved by both the Georgia Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As part of that registration process, Blue 42 had provided the GPS coordinates of its hemp-growing operation.
In July 2021, the Georgia Department of Public Safety was conducting a drug suppression operation in the area as part of the Governor’s Drug Suppression Task Force.
In the complaint, Blue 42 alleged that DPS flew helicopters and a fixed-wing aircraft at low altitude over the farm, destroying two rows of hemp crops worth approximately $37,000. The company said the plane also harassed cattle on the property, jeopardizing its ability to renew leases for land used for grazing.
Blue 42 filed a claim under a unique provision in the Georgia Constitution known as inverse condemnation. This differed from the traditional route for a claim of property damage or negligence.
Article I, Section III, Paragraph I(a) of the Georgia Constitution provides that private property cannot be taken or damaged for public purposes without just and adequate compensation. An inverse condemnation action essentially alleges that the government has taken or damaged someone’s property for a public purpose without first going through formal condemnation proceedings and paying the owner. Notably, case law has established that the constitutional Just Compensation Clause waives sovereign immunity for such claims.
Blue 42’s claims in the complaint alleged that DPS damaged private property while carrying out a government operation for a public purpose, so the State was constitutionally obligated to compensate the company for that damage.
Nothing in the complaint established that the hemp farm was a nuisance or that officers were confronting the sort of emergency or urgent necessity that would automatically take the property damage outside the Just Compensation Clause.
Defense by the Georgia Department of Public Safety
DPS asked for the court to dismiss the complaint on the basis of sovereign immunity, arguing that Blue 42 did not have a claim because the property damage occurred while the State was exercising its police power.
The trial court agreed and dismissed the lawsuit.
Blue 42 appealed, but the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the previous ruling in favor of the state. The Court of Appeals ruled that property damaged through an exercise of the government’s police power is outside the protections of Georgia’s Just Compensation Clause.
Blue 42 once again appealed the decision, this time to the Georgia Supreme Court. The question for the justices was whether or not the state can avoid Georgia’s constitutional requirement to compensate property owners simply by characterizing the government activity that caused the damage as an exercise of its “police power.”
Georgia Supreme Court Rejects Broad Police Power Exception
In a unanimous opinion decided September 9, 2026, Chief Justice Nels Peterson explained that “police power” has a much broader legal meaning than simply police officers enforcing criminal laws. The ‘power’ reaches the government’s authority to regulate for public health, safety, morality and general welfare. That includes law enforcement operations, zoning, building regulations, health regulations, and nuisance abatement.
Because that authority is so broad, the Court determined that a blanket exemption from the Just Compensation Clause for “everything done pursuant to police power” could dramatically undermine constitutional property protections.
The Court listed two established circumstances in Georgia case law which allow for the destruction of private property without compensation: destruction or abatement of a nuisance, and destruction of property because of an urgent or extreme public necessity.
The latter is the more extraordinary of the circumstances. The Court traced the doctrine to examples such as destroying a building to stop a spreading fire, destroying property during wartime, or taking similarly immediate action when there is no time for the ordinary governmental process.
Those exceptions, the Court emphasized, do not translate into a general rule that any property damaged during government activity is not subject to compensation.
This is Not a Decision on the Issue of Blue 42’s $37,000
It’s important to note that the Georgia Supreme Court did not rule specifically on Blue 42’s claim for $37,000 in damages or for other compensation related to the case.
The decision by the Supreme Court was on the Motion to Dismiss the case against the Georgia Department of Public Safety. The court reasoned that the trial court was required, at this stage, to assume the allegations in Blue 42’s complaint were true and allow the case to proceed further.
Nothing in the complaint established that the hemp farm was a nuisance or that officers were in a situation requiring emergency taking of the property outside of the Just Compensation Clause.
The Supreme Court decision also stops short of deciding whether or not Blue 42 has a successful inverse condemnation claim.
The decision only determined that DPS cannot obtain dismissal merely by saying the damage happened while the State was exercising its police power.
