By law, public agencies must pay when they damage private property. But Melisa and Michael Robinson received nothing after the local sewer board damaged their mobile home park in Okay, Oklahoma.

Leaving messes for others to clean up saves money. So, public agencies use various tricks to dodge the Fifth Amendment, which requires “just compensation” when the government takes private property for public use. These schemes are often elaborate, premeditated, and opaque.

Far too often, courts play along. Yet some abuses are too outrageous to ignore. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lost patience, for example, after a Louisiana parish took and damaged land, then ignored a court order to pay just compensation.

“This is really ludicrous,” one judge said during oral arguments in 2020.

Now, officials in Okay are using the same ludicrous playbook. They have been strung along the Robinsons for years, surprising them........

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