Facts
Mangana AG, a real estate company headquartered in Bern, acquired a plot of land of approximately 29 hectares in Murten in 1935. In 1945, the Municipal Council of Murten issued a building regulation, which was approved by the State Council of the Canton of Fribourg in 1948. This building regulation contained a construction ban in an area of 150 meters around the Murten Battle Memorial in Article 13. According to Mangana AG, this rendered around 20,995 square meters of their property unbuildable, which they claimed represented a loss in value of around 735,000 Swiss francs.
In 1966, Mangana AG requested the Municipal Council of Murten to pay a compensation for the reduction in value. When the Municipal Council rejected this, the company filed a lawsuit, seeking to have the construction ban declared invalid or to be awarded a judicially determined compensation. However, the Civil Court of the Sense District and the Cantonal Court of Fribourg dismissed the lawsuit, as they considered the construction ban valid and the compensation claim to be time-barred.
Mangana AG appealed the judgment to the Federal Supreme Court, which dismissed the appeal.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court stated in its considerations that the obligation to pay compensation for an expropriation-like intervention arises from the guarantee of property in the Federal Constitution. Since the public law of the Canton of Fribourg at the time of the issuance of the building regulation did not contain any statute of limitations for such compensation claims, the Federal Supreme Court assumed that these claims were nevertheless subject to the statute of limitations, as the public interest in legal certainty required this.
The Federal Supreme Court considered it not arbitrary that the Cantonal Court had assumed a limitation period of 10 years. It rejected the arguments…