MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court. We granted the petition for certiorari of the United States in this case, 444 U. S. 822, to decide the question "[w]hether 25 U. S. C. [§] 357 authorizes a state or local government to 'condemn' allotted Indian trust lands by physical occupation." Pet. for Cert. 2. That statute, in turn, provides in pertinent part:

"[L]ands allotted in severalty to Indians may be condemned for any public purpose under the laws of the State or Territory where located in the same manner as land owned in fee may be condemned, and the money awarded as damages shall be paid to the allottee." 31 Stat. 1084.

We think this is a case in which the meaning of a statute may be determined by the admittedly old-fashioned but nonetheless still entirely appropriate "plain meaning" canon of statutory construction. We further believe that the word "condemned," at least as it was commonly used in 1901, when 25 U. S. C. § 357 was enacted, had reference to a judicial proceeding instituted for the purpose of acquiring title to private property and paying just compensation for it.

Both the factual and legal background of the case are complicated, but these complications lose their significance under our interpretation of § 357. For it is conceded that neither the city of Glen Alps nor the city of Anchorage, both Alaska municipal corporations, ever brought an action to condemn the lands here in question in federal court as required by Minnesota v. United States, 305 U. S. 382 (1939). And since we hold that only in such a formal judicial proceeding may lands such as this be acquired, the complex factual and legal history of the dispute between the Government, respondents Glen M. Clarke et al., and respondent Bertha Mae Tabbytite need not be recited in detail.1

1 Respondent Tabbytite lost in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and did not petition for certiorari from that decision. She is there

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that § 357 permits acquisition of allotted lands by what has come to be known as "inverse condemnation." 590 F. 2d 765 (1979). In so holding, the court reasoned that "once the taking has been accomplished by the state it serves little purpose to interpret the statute to refuse to permit an inverse condemnation suit to be maintained on the groun[d] that the state should have filed an eminent domain action prior to the taking." Id., at 767. We disagree with the Court of Appeals and accordingly reverse the judgment.

There are important legal and practical differences between an inverse condemnation suit and a condemnation proceeding. Although a landowner's action to recover just compensation for a taking by physical intrusion has come to be referred to as "inverse" or "reverse" condemnation, the simple terms "condemn" and "condemnation" are not commonly used to describe such an action. Rather, a "condemnation" proceeding is commonly understood to be an action brought by a condemning authority such as the Government in the exercise of its power of eminent domain. In United States v. Lynah, 188 U. S. 445 (1903), for example, which held that the Federal Government's permanent flooding of the plaintiff's land constituted a compensable "taking" under the Fifth Amendment, this Court consistently made separate reference to condemnation proceedings and to the landowner's cause of action to recover damages for the taking. Id., at 462, 467, 468.2

fore a respondent in this Court. This Court's Rule 21 (4). Her counsel has filed both a brief and reply brief adopting the statements of the case and the arguments set forth in the brief for the United States, but principally devoted to "matters not included in the Brief of the United States." Since we agree with the position advanced by the United States, we need not decide whether Tabbytite's arguments comply with this Court's Rule 40 (1) (d) (2). See also Rule 40 (3).

2 The landowner's right to sue for damages was based on the theory that if a landowner were entitled to have governmental agents enjoined from taking his land without implementing condemnation proceedings, he also was entitled to waive that right and to demand just compensation as if the

More recent decisions of this Court reaffirm this well-established distinction between condemnation actions and physical takings by governmental bodies that may entitle a landowner to sue for compensation. Thus, in Ivanhoe Irrigation District v. McCracken, 357 U. S. 275, 291 (1958), when discussing the acquisition by the Government of property rights necessary to carry out a reclamation project, this Court stated that such rights must be acquired by "paying just compensation therefor, either through condemnation or, if already taken, through action of the owners in the courts." And in United States v. Dickinson, 331 U. S. 745, 749 (1947), this Court referred to the Government's choice "not to condemn land but to bring about a taking by a continuous process of physical events." See also id., at 747-748; Dugan v. Rank, 372 U. S. 609, 619 (1963).3

Government had taken his property under its sovereign right of eminent domain. 188 U. S., at 462. See also, e. g., United States v. Great Falls Manufacturing Co., 112 U. S. 645, 656 (1884). Cf. United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196 (1882) (holding that landowner could bring suit for ejectment against federal officials who took possession of land without bringing condemnation proceedings); Winslow v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 188 U. S. 646, 660–661 (1903) (after declining to treat a suit for damages by a landowner as a condemnation action, the Court directed the lower court to enjoin temporarily proceedings brought by the landowner to dispossess the railroad company from the land "in order to enable [the railroad company] to condemn such land in proper proceedings for that purpose, which cannot be taken in the present suit").

3 Also, in United States v. Dow, 357 U. S. 17, 21 (1958), this Court stated:

"Broadly speaking, the United States may take property pursuant to its power of eminent domain in one of two ways: it can enter into physical possession of property without authority of a court order; or it can institute condemnation proceedings under various Acts of Congress providing authority for such takings. Under the first method-physical seizure-no condemnation proceedings are instituted, and the property owner is provided a remedy under the Tucker Act, 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346 (a) (2) and 1491, to recover just compensation. See Hurley v. Kincaid, 285 U. S. 95, 104. Under the second procedure the Government may either employ statutes

The phrase "inverse condemnation" appears to be one that was coined simply as a shorthand description of the manner in which a landowner recovers just compensation for a taking of his property when condemnation proceedings have not been instituted. As defined by one land use planning expert, "[i]nverse condemnation is 'a cause of action against a governmental defendant to recover the value of property which has been taken in fact by the governmental defendant, even though no formal exercise of the power of eminent domain has been attempted by the taking agency.'" D. Hagman, Urban Planning and Land Development Control Law 328 (1971) (emphasis added). A landowner is entitled to bring such an action as a result of "the self-executing character of the constitutional provision with respect to compensation...." See 6 P. Nichols, Eminent Domain § 25.41 (3d rev. ed. 1972). A condemnation proceeding, by contrast, typically involves an action by the condemnor to effect a taking and acquire title. The phrase "inverse condemnation," as a common understanding of that phrase would suggest, simply describes an action that is the "inverse" or "reverse" of a condemnation proceeding.

There are also important practical differences between condemnation proceedings and actions by landowners to recover compensation for "inverse condemnation." Condemnation proceedings, depending on the applicable statute, require various affirmative action on the part of the condemning authority. To accomplish a taking by seizure, on the other hand, a condemning authority need only occupy the land in question. Such a taking thus shifts to the landowner the burden to discover the encroachment and to take affirmative action to recover just compensation. And in the case of Indian trust

which require it to pay over the judicially determined compensation before it can enter upon the land, or proceed under other statutes which enable it to take immediate possession upon order of court before the amount of just compensation has been ascertained."

lands, which present the Government "with an almost staggering problem in attempting to discharge its trust obligations with respect to thousands upon thousands of scattered Indian allotments,'" Poafpybitty v. Skelly Oil Co., 390 U. S. 365, 374 (1968), the United States may be placed at a significant disadvantage by this shifting of the initiative from the condemning authority to the condemnee.

Likewise, the choice of the condemning authority to take property by physical invasion rather than by a formal condemnation action may also have important monetary consequences. The value of property taken by a governmental body is to be ascertained as of the date of taking. United States v. Miller, 317 U. S. 369, 374 (1943). In a condemnation proceeding, the taking generally occurs sometime during the course of the proceeding, and thus compensation is based on a relatively current valuation of the land. See 1 L. Orgel, Valuation in Eminent Domain § 21, n. 29 (2d ed. 1953). When a taking occurs by physical invasion, on the other hand, the usual rule is that the time of the invasion constitutes the act of taking, and "[i]t is that event which gives rise to the claim for compensation and fixes the date as of which the land is to be valued. . . ." United States v. Dow, 357 U. S. 17, 22 (1958).

Thus, even assuming that the term "inverse condemnation" were in use in 1901 to the same extent as it is today, there are sufficient legal and practical differences between "condemnation" and "inverse condemnation" to convince us that when § 357 authorizes the condemnation of lands pursuant to the laws of a State or Territory, the term "condemned" refers not to an action by a landowner to recover compensation for a taking, but to a formal condemnation proceeding instituted by the condemning authority.*

The legislative history of § 357 does not provide any meaningful guidance as to the meaning of "condemned." The language eventually adopted as § 357 was not part of the original bill. It was inserted, without com