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Spring Break, Scalia-StyleThe best Supreme Court case ever about partying on the beach.

By Dahlia LithwickPosted Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009, at 7:52 PM ET

House on the beach. Beach house The line between what's public and what's private is—in the words of a recent Florida Supreme Court decision—"a dynamic boundary" that, "by its very nature, frequently changes." Tiger Woods is a public person who wishes he had more privacy. Party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi are private persons who probably wish they had a bit more publicity. Justice Anthony Kennedy—who assisted the Salahis in their quest to be larger-than-life by speaking at their wedding (skip ahead to the 50-second mark unless your tolerance for gloves and doves is higher than mine)—has been grappling very publicly of late with questions about when private speeches should be public and public ones should be private. And Kennedy and the rest of the Supreme Court devote a whole Gidget-ish morning to this private/public divide by pondering whether a private beach is still private when there's a noisy hot dog stand or a raging spring break taking place at the water's edge.

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The question before the court in what might be—but probably isn't—the biggest takings case since Kelo v. New London in 2005 is what happens when the state of Florida, in an effort to stop erosion, trucks in tons of soft, white sand to expand the size of your beach but then keeps a strip of that new beach for itself. That makes Stop the Beach Renourishment Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection kind of like Kelo but without the poor people. It's also not exactly a takings case, since, as several justices point out today, the landowners who are complaining that the state took their beach away actually haven't lost anything. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg puts it, "They have a wider beach that's theirs, so they have gained property." In a sense, it's not so much a takings case as a give-and-takings case.

The case began in 2003 when six property owners in the Florida-panhandle town of Destin challenged the Beach and Shore Preservation Act, a statute that requires state officials to establish a "renourishment" project when waterfront land is "critically eroded." The act provides that the state owns any new dry beach created up to something called the Erosion Control Line. The act also expressly protects the property owners' rights to access the water and to enjoy the peace and quiet of their beachfront properties. The property owners sued, claiming that the act had downgraded their waterfront property into water-view property. The Fifth Amendment takings clause says governments must pay "just compensation" when they take private property for public use. The landowners initially prevailed with this claim before a state appeals court, but lost by a 5-2 margin at the Florida Supreme Court. They have now broadened their appeal to include the novel question of whether the Florida Supreme Court, by siding with the state, itself committed a "judicial taking" by grabbing property for public use without paying for it. Justice John Paul Stevens—who owns a beachfront apartment in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.—was not present at argument today, presumably because he might someday be accused of judicially taking private land away from himself.

The landowners are represented at oral argument today by D. Kent Safriet, who says that "[g]iven this court's jurisprudence that a state's legislative and executive branches cannot violate the Fifth Amendment, we see no reason why the judicial branch should be treated any differently." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is unpersuaded, pointing out that the landowners' contention at trial was that the legislature was guilty of a taking and that it makes no sense to claim now that "the judiciary somehow is complicit in this violation by the legislature."

Justice Stephen Breyer tells Safriet, who is saying that property owners have a common-law right to claim what they have lost, "But you didn't lose anything. It just went out the front door there. … You didn't lose one inch. All you lost was the right to touch the water. But the court here says you, in effect, have that right because you can walk right over it and get to the water." Safriet says that adding a state-owned beach in front of their land means his clients have lost their right to contact the water's edge.

Asks Chief Justice John Roberts: "If somebody wanted to put up a hot dog stand on this new land, would you have the right to tell them they can't?"

Breyer says the statute precludes the state from putting up anything on that strip that destroys your "right of enjoyment." So if the state "put up a noisy hot dog stand that keeps you up at night," that would violate the statute. Scalia points out that the state could still erect "quiet hot dog stands during the daytime." Justice Sonia Sotomayor counters that under Florida common law, even before the start of this litigation, "a hot dog stand could have sat in the water" beyond the property owner's boundary line.

Justice Antonin Scalia asks, "Did any of these beachfront owners think this was a good deal, that the state has prevented further erosion of their land and, you know, the price they pay for this is that they have this 60-foot stretch that the public can use, and that may wash away in six years anyway, and if they're lucky the state won't have enough money to put it back?" Scalia concludes that he's "not sure it's a bad deal" for the property owners. It may be better to have the erosion-controlled beach: Without it, "all of your property might be underwater, right? That wouldn't be very good."

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Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor.

Photograph of a beach house by Gary Faber/Getty Images.

COMMENTS

I don't see a "taking" here. If there's no taking, then there's no reason to address the issue of a "judicial" taking. And even if the owners lost private access to the water, I still don't see a taking.

I saw a city apartment recently with a tremendous view. It's one of the great reasons to buy that unit. But I also know the city just approved a zoning variance that will allow towers to be built across the street that will eliminate most of that view. I think it's well established that there's no "taking" there, because one doesn't have a right to a view even though its elimination substantially reduces the value of the apartment. The owner hasn't lost one bit of physical property, and losing the view is simply a risk on assumes in the real estate world.

Similarly, the owners in this case haven't lost a bit of property either. Sure, water access (which they retain)--and the ability to exclude others from the water (which they don't)--may have been a big part of the property's value. But having one's expectations upset does not a "takings" make. Just as there's no property right to a view, I don't see why there would be a property right to exclusive waterfront access.

This seems like an odd case for the Court to have "taken."

-- dsimon
(To reply, click here)

In comparing Stop the Beach Renourishment Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection with Kelo v. New London, too many people miss the point of Kelo: that the city of New London, Connecticut had the legal right to exercise eminent domain in the way they did not because the city had the implicit right to appropriate those homes but because of the absence of legislation and regulation by the Connecticut Legislature spelling out that the city didn't have that right. Though they may not realize it, those who found fault in the Kelo decision apparently prefer - in this case, at least - for the judiciary (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, et.al.) instead of the appropriate legislature to define the standards for the exercise of eminent domain within a state. That would be better?

The majority's ruling of the Kelo case noted the potential for abuse and concluded with the majority imploring the various state legislatures to, as quickly as practical, correct by appropriate legislation the oversight of not explicitly defining and regulating eminent domain. (Much to my surprise, the Alabama Legislature did so in a comparatively short period.)

Personally, I really wonder why the U.S. Supreme Court decided to review this particular case. Even if the justices were concerned about "judicial takings", SBRI v Florida seems to not be the best forum to debate this issue.

-- Alabama Al
(To reply, click here)

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