Real Estate & Property Law

SCOTUS To Review Beachfront Takings Case: Can A Court Decision "Take" Property?

By Robert Thomas (inversecondemnation.com)

In Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009), the US Supreme Court agreed to review a case that raises several important takings issues, including the issue of whether a court decision can take property. The ABA Journal's July 2006 report "Up Against the Seawall" tells the backstory on the case and highlights other beach issues.

In Walton County v. Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc., 998 So.2d 1102 (Fla. Sep. 29, 2008), the Florida Supreme Court held that a state statute which prohibits "beach renourishment" without a permit did not effect a taking of littoral (beachfront) property, even though it altered the long-standing rights of the owners to accretion on their land and direct access to the ocean. The cert petition presents these questions:

The Florida Supreme Court invoked "nonexistent rules of state substantive law" to reverse 100 years of uniform holdings that littoral rights are constitutionally protected. In doing so, did the Florida Court's decision cause a "judicial taking" proscribed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution?

Is the Florida Supreme Court's approval of a legislative scheme that eliminates constitutional littoral rights and replaces them with statutory rights a violation of the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution?

Is the Florida Supreme Court's approval of a legislative scheme that allows an executive agency to unilaterally modify a private landowner's property boundary without a judicial hearing or the payment of just compensation a violation of the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution?

On the first question, while the Court has implicitly recognized that a taking can occur if a court decision departs from long-standing principles it has yet to directly address the question. The cert petition raised a split in lower court authority by pointing out that in Robinson v. Ariyoshi, 753 F.2d 1468 (9th Cir. 1985), the Ninth Circuit held the Hawaii Supreme Court's radical restructuring of Hawaii riparian water rights in the McBryde case was a judicial taking (the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Robinson on the basis it was not yet ripe for review under Williamson County).

The Hawaii appellate courts are presently reviewing a similar case. In Maunalua Bay Beach Ohana 28 v. State of Hawaii, an appeal now pending in the Intermediate Court of Appeals, the issue is whether the state or littoral landowners are entitled to ownership of accreted land. In "Act 73," the Hawaii Legislature declared that shoreline land naturally accreted belongs to the State of Hawaii and is public property. The act overturned the age-old rule of shoreline accretion and erosion, which held that beachfront owners lose ownership of land when it erodes, but gain it when it accretes.  Instead of these balanced rules, Act 73 made the erosion/accretion equation one-sided: the State wins every time. We filed an amicus brief in the appeal, a copy of which is available here.

More to come.

Full post as published by inversecondemnation on June 15, 2009 (boomark / email).