You have to be a real legal nerd to be interested in real property law which is, in large part, unchanged for six or eight hundred years. That said, there is an unusual case coming before the Supreme Court next week for oral arguments.
The State of Florida routinely pumps sand into waterfront beach areas to try to fight beach erosion from hurricanes and other natural events. Generally these efforts draw applause from the public for trying to maintain the natural beauty of the State.
But (there is always a but with government) it turns out that, as usual, government does not hand out a benefit without a catch. The new strips of land caused by the Florida beach restoration and renourishment program are considered to be public land and the formerly water front land owners no longer own property all the way to the Ocean (or Gulf).
In a case which has already made it to the Florida State Supreme Court, land owners in the Gulf front community of Destin in Florida’s panhandle area objected that the State laws concerning Beach restoration amounted to an uncompensated “taking” of property rights from the land owners.
The Florida Supreme Court, not unknown to my highlights reel of politically motivated court decisions (Presidential Election of 2000), didn’t see any problem with the fact that water front owner’s property did not reach the water (legally referred to as littoral rights) and chose to ignore more than a century of law in Florida and other coastal states. Typically the property owners property line is the “mean high water line”, a fluctuating boundary which typically benefits the landowner if sand accumulates and adds to the property. That remains the applicable law for 1,152 miles of Florida’s 1,350 mile coastline. But for the 198 miles of coastline where the State has defended the beach from erosion, according to the Florida Supreme Court, the land owners now have fewer, inferior and revocable littoral rights in place of the common law and pre-existing rights. In a dissenting opinion, Florida Justice Lewis states that the majority has butchered Florida law and has simply erased well-established Florida law without proper analysis.
The trick question which permits this case to come to the US Supreme Court is whether the actions of the Judicial branch of government can be construed to be a “taking” subject to Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment protection the way the actions of the Executive or Legislative branches are considered.
The US Supreme Court will hear the case next week.
Film at eleven.
My Source(s)
News article link to the Lakeland Ledger
Supreme Court briefs (including Amicus briefs for those of you with no life at all) in the case Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection (Docket No 08–1151)
In a touch of irony, the legacy of the Supreme Court’s infamous and recent cases in the area of eminent domain – the right of government to take property for public use – is recently in the news.
Five years ago, the Court decided the Kelo v New London case in which they declared that a local government could seize property under eminent domain for private use where the public benefit rises to the level of public use. Not a very popular case. Some commentators suggested that cities condemn the properties of Justices who voted for the majority. In response, 43 states have heightened requirements for the application of eminent domain processes.
The City of New London, CT, had seized an aging neighborhood for the use of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer as part of a corporate campus. The theory was that the new commercial construction would enhance the tax base and the employment level of the City benefiting the public.
Well, the ball keeps on bouncing.
The City of New London and the State of Connecticut spent $78 million dollars to bulldoze the property to prepare for the Pfizer project.
Early this month, Pfizer announced that it was pulling out of New London and closing its facility there – moving 1400 jobs across the river to Groton. This is the result of Pfizer buying Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and the elimination of 20,000 jobs.
So the condemned site remains vacant and lifeless. Proof, once again, that God and perhaps the Supreme Court have a sense of humor.
Background from the Hampton Roads Business Journal
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