Case brief summary
If a government regulation takes away all economically beneficial use of a piece of land, the government usually has to pay the owner just compensation, unless the banned use was already not allowed under existing property or nuisance law.
Facts
A man bought two beachfront lots in South Carolina planning to build houses like his neighbors had. Two years later the state passed a new coastal law that completely barred him from building any permanent structure on the lots.
Procedural history
A trial court said the law made his land worthless and awarded over $1.2 million. The state supreme court reversed, finding no payment owed since the law aimed to stop harm. The Supreme Court agreed to review.
Issue
Does a law that wipes out all economic value of land count as a taking requiring payment, even if meant to prevent public harm, and was the case ready to decide?
Holding
The claim was ready for decision, and the state court wrongly excused payment just because the law aimed to prevent harm. The case was sent back to check if existing property rules already limited this land use.
Reasoning
When a regulation removes all economically beneficial use of land, it is treated like the government physically taking the property, so compensation is required unless the owner never actually had the right to use the land that way in the first place, meaning the use would already have been forbidden under background common law rules on property and nuisance. The government cannot avoid paying just by labeling the restricted use as harmful or noxious, because almost any regulation can be described as preventing harm.
Opinions
Majority (Scalia): A law denying all economic use of land is a taking requiring compensation unless background property or nuisance law already barred that use, so the case is sent back for that analysis.
Concurrences (Kennedy): Agreed the case could be decided now, but said courts should judge takings by owners reasonable expectations shaped by the whole legal tradition, not just narrow nuisance law.
Dissent (Blackmun): The claim was not ready for review and the record did not show the land was worthless, and the majority wrongly shifted the burden of proof onto the state and invented a rigid rule unsupported by past cases.
Dissent (Stevens): The Court should have waited to decide the case and its new all-or-nothing rule is arbitrary, ignoring that regulations applying broadly to all landowners deserve different treatment than ones targeting a single owner.