The United States government claimed a public right to fly over Thomas Lee Causby's farm located near an airport in Greensboro, North Carolina.

[2] The Court held that a taking had occurred, but nullified the common law doctrine that ownership of property extended indefinitely upward.

The court also affirmed that navigable airspace was public domain and held that flights which are so low and frequent as to be a direct and immediate interference with the enjoyment and use of real property constitute a taking.

[3] Thomas Lee Causby was a land owner less than a half mile from the end of the runway of Lindley Field, an airstrip in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The Court affirmed the right to of transit through navigable airspace:[5]: 260–261 266 "The air above the minimum safe altitude of flight prescribed by the Civil Aeronautics Authority is a public highway and part of the public domain, as declared by Congress in the Air Commerce Act of 1926, as amended by the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938.

At the time, this was defined as "airspace above the minimum safe altitudes of flight prescribed by the Civil Aeronautics Authority."

[9] The question of whether takings can occur within navigable airspace has been addressed in later cases, most notably in Griggs v. County of Allegheny and Branning v. United States.