David H. Lucas v. South Carolina Costal Council 505 U.S.

1003 (1992) US Supreme Court Parties: Plaintiff: David H. Lucas Defendant: South Carolina Costal Council

Facts: In 1986 developer David H. Lucas purchased to lots on a barrier island in South Carolina, which were zoned single family residential, with the intention of developing the lots. However in 1988 the state of South Carolina institute the Beachfront Management Act (BMA), which established new baselines on the coastal barrier islands. The BMA prohibited any property development of occupable improvements seaward of a line parallel to and 20 feet landward of the baseline, thus prohibiting Mr. Lucas proposed development and thereby depriving the developer of any reasonable economic use of the property, rendering it valueless. Legal Issue: Does the state of South Carolina through the Beachfront Management Act have the right to ban developers from all viable economic use without providing just compensation? This ban of development would therefore would be effected a taking as stated in the under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments thus providing just compensation to the developers. Holding: In an opinion by Scalia, joined by Rehnquist, White, OConnor, and Thomas, the supreme court held that South Carolina court held to have applied wrong standard in determining whether state beachfront management statute, by barring construction, effected "taking" of property under Fifth Amendment. The Court thus reverses the decision of Supreme Court of South Carolina in favor Mr. Lucas. Rational: Where a state seeks to sustain a regulation that deprives land of all economically beneficial use, the state may resist an asserted right to compensation under the takings clause, on the theory that there has been no "taking," only if the logically antecedent inquiry into the nature of the owner's estate shows that the proscribed use interests were not part of the owner's title to begin with, so that the severe limitation on property use is not newly legislated or decreed, but inheres in the title itself through the restrictions that background principles of the state's law of property and nuisance already place upon land ownership. Critical Analysis: This case is one that centers on the idea of managing the development of beachfront properties and who has the control of the development. Many states along the Atlantic coastal seaboard are constantly barraged with costal storms every year causing billions of dollars in property damage, epically on the small barrier islands, which makes up many coastlines. The state of South Carolina, in hoping to possibly curtail additional development on its coastal beachfronts imposed the BMA. But the imposing of this act leads to the question of taking and just compensation as stated in the Constitution. Considering that many beachfront properties are considered high value areas does the state have the authority to come in and render a property that was once developable land non developable without compensation the owner of the property justly, even though the state is not purchasing the property for the idea of beachfront management, but of instead preventing the owner of reasonable economic use of the property that had previously determined by changing the abilities of the property, with no compensation to the owner.