Here’s a quick illustration of Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid. Imagine you’re a nursery owner, minding your own business, watering your prized saplings. Enter stage left: the government, clipboard in hand, announcing, “Congratulations! You’ve just been awarded the privilege of sharing your property with whoever we say, whenever we say. But don’t worry—it’s not all the time. Just daylight hours. Nights? Oh, those are still yours.”

So, you think, “Daylight? That’s not too bad. What’s the worst that could happen?” Well, it turns out 365 days of “just daylight” is a hell of a lot of daylight. And suddenly, your supposed sanctuary starts feeling less like private property and more like a glorified public park. The kicker? The court nods along and says, “Yep, that’s a permanent right of access.”

Sure, it’s not technically permanent, because you get to sit in the dark and stew over your new reality every night. But let’s be real: is there anything more permanent than government-sanctioned strangers traipsing through your backyard every waking hour? So here’s the deal: when the government takes away your right to say, “Get off my lawn!” and swaps it for, “Only during daylight hours, folks,” that’s what we call an appropriation. And the court’s like, “Yeah, you probably deserve some compensation for that. Probably.”

In short, the Supreme Court handed you the ultimate homeowner’s right: a right to exclude!