Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/1003/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 16:23:59+00:00

Document:
A taking that requires fair compensation exists when the government creates a regulation that negates all economically beneficial use of a property, and state nuisance law would have permitted such a use.
Lucas paid $975,000 for two lots on the Isle of Palms in South Carolina, where he intended to build single-family homes. None of the local authorities had yet imposed any restrictions on the use of the property, which stood on unstable ground subject to flooding and erosion. Two years later, the state created the Beachfront Management Act, designed to halt the march of erosion on South Carolina beaches. It imposed a blanket rule against building any habitable improvements on property that was closer to the ocean than a certain line on the Isle of Palms that connected points particularly vulnerable to erosion. The prohibited area included the lots that Lucas had bought, although he had not built houses on them yet.
Lucas argued that the law resulted in a government taking of his property without just compensation, although he did not argue that the law itself was unconstitutional. He succeeded in the lower court, which imposed a damages award of over $1.2 million on the state, but the South Carolinea Supreme Court disagreed and withheld compensation.
Scalia identified two common situations in which courts typically find that a taking has occurred. These are when the government has caused a physical incursion onto private property and when the government has acted in a way that removes all economic or productive use from the land. He found that there was an exception to the second category when the activity on the land constitutes a nuisance that causes harm to the general public. Some of the Court's earlier decisions had applied a test for these types of takings that investigated whether the state regulation advanced an legitimate government interest related to land use.
However, Scalia felt that it was time to depart from this style of analysis. He argued that the state could justify virtually any land use regulation under the theory that it would further the public good or combat a public harm, since there is a virtually infinite range of ways in which the public good may be compromised, depending on the perspective of whoever is evaluating it. As a result, he proposed a stricter standard in which compensation would be required for the deprivation of all economically beneficial use of property unless the public harm consisted of something that already was illegal under property law on nuisances. He remanded the case to the state court so that the state could have an opportunity to identify a pre-existing law that Lucas would violate if he developed his property.
Pointing out that Scalia had identified a standard but not actually resolved the case, Kennedy was less certain from the evidence presented whether Lucas actually intended to develop the property. He also felt that Scalia had gone too far in assuming that the property had lost all of its economic value without enough information in the record to support that conclusion. Kennedy would have preferred a more subjective analysis that would determine value based on the reasonable expectations of the property owner.
Blackmun was satisfied that the regulation was enacted to protect the property and lives of the state's citizens from the serious threat of erosion. He felt that Lucas had not presented any compelling evidence to challenge that rule. Blackmun also suggested that the majority had erroneously shifted the burden of proof in Fifth Amendment cases from the property owner to the state, which now was required to justify the judgments of its legislature.
Stevens argued that the majority had adopted too stark a rule and too narrow an exception to it. He observed that it was unfair to absolve the state of paying any compensation to a property owner who had lost nearly all of the property's value while requiring the state to pay full compensation to a property owner who had lost all of the property's value. The majority's reliance on traditional common law principles, according to Stevens, also prevented states from modernizing those principles according to the evolving needs of their citizens.
Identifying key holes in the record, Souter felt that the case should not have been heard by the court because it did not have enough evidence to make an informed decision.
This case produced the "total takings" standard under which courts evaluate whether a government's taking of property has eradicated its value for the private property owner. The state ultimately paid compensation to the property owner and sold the lots for development.
In 1986, petitioner Lucas bought two residential lots on a South Carolina barrier island, intending to build single-family homes such as those on the immediately adjacent parcels. At that time, Lucas's lots were not subject to the State's coastal zone building permit requirements. In 1988, however, the state legislature enacted the Beachfront Management Act, which barred Lucas from erecting any permanent habitable structures on his parcels. He filed suit against respondent state agency, contending that, even though the Act may have been a lawful exercise of the State's police power, the ban on construction deprived him of all "economically viable use" of his property and therefore effected a "taking" under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that required the payment of just compensation. See, e. g., Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 261. The state trial court agreed, finding that the ban rendered Lucas's parcels "valueless," and entered an award exceeding $1.2 million. In reversing, the State Supreme Court held itself bound, in light of Lucas's failure to attack the Act's validity, to accept the legislature's "uncontested ... findings" that new construction in the coastal zone threatened a valuable public resource. The court ruled that, under the Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, line of cases, when a regulation is designed to prevent "harmful or noxious uses" of property akin to public nuisances, no compensation is owing under the Takings Clause regardless of the regulation's effect on the property's value.
1. Lucas's takings claim is not rendered unripe by the fact that he may yet be able to secure a special permit to build on his property under an amendment to the Act passed after briefing and argument before the State Supreme Court, but prior to issuance of that court's opinion. Because it declined to rest its judgment on ripeness grounds, preferring to dispose of the case on the merits, the latter court's decision precludes, both practically and legally, any takings claim with respect to Lucas's pre amendment deprivation. Lucas has properly alleged injury in fact with respect to this pre amendment deprivation, and it would not accord with sound process in these circumstances to insist that he pursue the late-created procedure before that component of his takings claim can be considered ripe. Pp. 1010-1014.
2. The State Supreme Court erred in applying the "harmful or noxious uses" principle to decide this case. Pp. 1014-1032.
(a) Regulations that deny the property owner all "economically viable use of his land" constitute one of the discrete categories of regulatory deprivations that require compensation without the usual casespecific inquiry into the public interest advanced in support of the restraint. Although the Court has never set forth the justification for this categorical rule, the practical-and economic- equivalence of physically appropriating and eliminating all beneficial use of land counsels its preservation. Pp. 1014-1019.
(b) A review of the relevant decisions demonstrates that the "harmful or noxious use" principle was merely this Court's early formulation of the police power justification necessary to sustain (without compensation) any regulatory diminution in value; that the distinction between regulation that "prevents harmful use" and that which "confers benefits" is difficult, if not impossible, to discern on an objective, value-free basis; and that, therefore, noxious-use logic cannot be the basis for departing from this Court's categorical rule that total regulatory takings must be compensated. Pp. 1020-1026.
(c) Rather, the question must turn, in accord with this Court's "takings" jurisprudence, on citizens' historic understandings regarding the content of, and the State's power over, the "bundle of rights" that they acquire when they take title to property. Because it is not consistent with the historical compact embodied in the Takings Clause that title to real estate is held subject to the State's subsequent decision to eliminate all economically beneficial use, a regulation having that effect cannot be newly decreed, and sustained, without compensation's being paid the owner. However, no compensation is owed-in this setting as with all takings claims-if the State's affirmative decree simply makes explicit what already inheres in the title itself, in the restrictions that background principles of the State's law of property and nuisance already place upon land ownership. Cf. Scranton v. Wheeler, 179 U. S. 141, 163. Pp. 1027-1031.
(d) Although it seems unlikely that common-law principles would have prevented the erection of any habitable or productive improvements on Lucas's land, this state-law question must be dealt with on remand. To win its case, respondent cannot simply proffer the legislature's declaration that the uses Lucas desires are inconsistent with the public interest, or the conclusory assertion that they violate a commonlaw maxim such as sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas, but must identify background principles of nuisance and property law that prohibit the uses Lucas now intends in the property's present circumstances. P.1031.
304 S. C. 376, 404 S. E. 2d 895, reversed and remanded.
SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and WHITE, O'CONNOR, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 1032. BLACKMUN, J., post, p. 1036, and STEVENS, J., post, p. 1061, filed dissenting opinions. SOUTER, J., filed a separate statement, post, p. 1076.
A. Camden Lewis argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Gerald M. Finkel and David J. Bederman.
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the United States by Solicitor General Starr, Acting Assistant Attorney General Hartman, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Clegg, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Cohen, Edwin S. Kneedler, Peter R. Steen land, James E. Brookshire, John A. Bryson, and Martin W Matzen; for United States Senator Steve Symms et al. by Peter D. Dickson, Howard E. Shapiro, and D. Eric Hultman; for the American Farm Bureau Federation et al. by James D. Holzhauer, Clifford M. Sloan, Timothy S. Bishop, John J. Rademacher, and Richard L. Krause; for the American Mining Congress et al. by George W Miller, Walter A. Smith, Jr., Stuart A. Sanderson, William E. Hynan, and Robert A. Kirshner; for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America by Stephen A. Bokat, Robin S. Conrad, Herbert L. Fenster, and Tami Lyn Azorsky; for Defenders of Property Rights et al. by Nancy G. Marzulla; for the Fire Island Association, Inc., by Bernard S. Meyer; for the Institute for Justice by Richard A. Epstein, William H. Mellor III, Clint Bolick, and Jonathan W Emord; for the Long Beach Island Oceanfront Homeowners Association et al. by Theodore J. Carlson; for the Mountain States Legal Foundation et al. by William Perry Pendley; for the National Association of Home Builders et al. by Michael M. Berger and William H. Ethier; for the Nemours Foundation, Inc., by John J. Mullenholz; for the Northern Virginia Chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Parks et al. by John Holland Foote and John F. Cahill; for the Pacific Legal Foundation by Ronald A. Zumbrun, Edward J. Connor, Jr., and R. S. Radford; and for the South Carolina Policy Council Education Foundation et al. by G. Stephen Parker.
South Carolina, on which he intended to build single-family homes. In 1988, however, the South Carolina Legislature enacted the Beachfront Management Act, S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-250 et seq. (Supp. 1990), which had the direct effect of barring petitioner from erecting any permanent habitable structures on his two parcels. See § 48-39-290(A). A state trial court found that this prohibition rendered Lucas's parcels "valueless." App. to Pet. for Cert. 37. This case requires us to decide whether the Act's dramatic effect on the economic value of Lucas's lots accomplished a taking of private property under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments requiring the payment of "just compensation." U. S. Const., Arndt. 5.
Inc., by William E. Hegarty, Michael S. Gruen, Philip K. Howard, Norman Marcus, and Philip Weinberg; for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States by Lloyd N. Cutler, Louis R. Cohen, David R. Johnson, Peter B. Hutt II, Jerold S. Kayden, David A. Doheny, and Elizabeth S. Merritt; for the Sierra Club et al. by Lawrence N. Minch, Laurens H. Silver, and Charles M. Chambers; and for the U. S. Conference of Mayors et al. by Richard Ruda, Michael G. Dzialo, and Barbara Etkind.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the National Association of Realtors by Ralph W Holmen; and for the Washington Legal Foundation by Daniel J. Popeo and Paul D. Kamenar.
§48-39-10(J)) to obtain a permit from the newly created South Carolina Coastal Council (Council) (respondent here) prior to committing the land to a "use other than the use the critical area was devoted to on [September 28, 1977]." § 48-39-130(A).
In the late 1970's, Lucas and others began extensive residential development of the Isle of Palms, a barrier island situated eastward of the city of Charleston. Toward the close of the development cycle for one residential subdivision known as "Beachwood East," Lucas in 1986 purchased the two lots at issue in this litigation for his own account. No portion of the lots, which were located approximately 300 feet from the beach, qualified as a "critical area" under the 1977 Act; accordingly, at the time Lucas acquired these parcels, he was not legally obliged to obtain a permit from the Council in advance of any development activity. His intention with respect to the lots was to do what the owners of the immediately adjacent parcels had already done: erect singlefamily residences. He commissioned architectural drawings for this purpose.
1 This specialized historical method of determining the baseline applied because the Beachwood East subdivision is located adjacent to a so-called "inlet erosion zone" (defined in the Act to mean "a segment of shoreline along or adjacent to tidal inlets which are directly influenced by the inlet and its associated shoals," S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-270(7) (Supp. 1988)) that is "not stabilized by jetties, terminal groins, or other structures," § 48-39-280(A)(2). For areas other than these unstabilized inlet erosion zones, the statute directs that the baseline be established along "the crest of an ideal primary oceanfront sand dune." §48-39-280(A)(1).
construction of occupable improvements 2 was flatly prohibited seaward of a line drawn 20 feet landward of, and parallel to, the baseline. § 48-39-290(A). The Act provided no exceptions.
Lucas promptly filed suit in the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas, contending that the Beachfront Management Act's construction bar effected a taking of his property without just compensation. Lucas did not take issue with the validity of the Act as a lawful exercise of South Carolina's police power, but contended that the Act's complete extinguishment of his property's value entitled him to compensation regardless of whether the legislature had acted in furtherance of legitimate police power objectives. Following a bench trial, the court agreed. Among its factual determinations was the finding that "at the time Lucas purchased the two lots, both were zoned for single-family residential construction and ... there were no restrictions imposed upon such use of the property by either the State of South Carolina, the County of Charleston, or the Town of the Isle of Palms." App. to Pet. for Cert. 36. The trial court further found that the Beachfront Management Act decreed a permanent ban on construction insofar as Lucas's lots were concerned, and that this prohibition "deprive[d] Lucas of any reasonable economic use of the lots, ... eliminated the unrestricted right of use, and render[ed] them valueless." Id., at 37. The court thus concluded that Lucas's properties had been "taken" by operation of the Act, and it ordered respondent to pay "just compensation" in the amount of $1,232,387.50. Id., at 40.
2 The Act did allow the construction of certain nonhabitable improvements, e. g., "wooden walkways no larger in width than six feet," and "small wooden decks no larger than one hundred forty-four square feet." §§ 48-39-290(A)(1) and (2).
Beachfront Management Act [was] properly and validly designed to preserve ... South Carolina's beaches." 304 S. C. 376, 379, 404 S. E. 2d 895, 896 (1991). Failing an attack on the validity of the statute as such, the court believed itself bound to accept the "uncontested ... findings" of the South Carolina Legislature that new construction in the coastal zone-such as petitioner intended-threatened this public resource. Id., at 383, 404 S. E. 2d, at 898. The court ruled that when a regulation respecting the use of property is designed "to prevent serious public harm," id., at 383, 404 S. E. 2d, at 899 (citing, inter alia, Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 (1887)), no compensation is owing under the Takings Clause regardless of the regulation's effect on the property's value.
Two justices dissented. They acknowledged that our Mugler line of cases recognizes governmental power to prohibit "noxious" uses of property-i. e., uses of property akin to "public nuisances"-without having to pay compensation. But they would not have characterized the Beachfront Management Act's "primary purpose [as] the prevention of a nuisance." 304 S. C., at 395, 404 S. E. 2d, at 906 (Harwell, J., dissenting). To the dissenters, the chief purposes of the legislation, among them the promotion of tourism and the creation of a "habitat for indigenous flora and fauna," could not fairly be compared to nuisance abatement. Id., at 396, 404 S. E. 2d, at 906. As a consequence, they would have affirmed the trial court's conclusion that the Act's obliteration of the value of petitioner's lots accomplished a taking.
We granted certiorari. 502 U. S. 966 (1991).
authorize the Council, in certain circumstances, to issue "special permits" for the construction or reconstruction of habitable structures seaward of the baseline. See S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-290(D)(1) (Supp. 1991). According to the Council, this amendment renders Lucas's claim of a permanent deprivation unripe, as Lucas may yet be able to secure permission to build on his property. "[The Court's] cases," we are reminded, "uniformly reflect an insistence on knowing the nature and extent of permitted development before adjudicating the constitutionality of the regulations that purport to limit it." MacDonald, Sommer & Frates v. Yolo County, 477 U. S. 340, 351 (1986). See also Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 260 (1980). Because petitioner "has not yet obtained a final decision regarding how [he] will be allowed to develop [his] property," Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U. S. 172, 190 (1985), the Council argues that he is not yet entitled to definitive adjudication of his takings claim in this Court.
temporary deprivations of use are compensable under the Takings Clause). Without even so much as commenting upon the consequences of the South Carolina Supreme Court's judgment in this respect, the Council insists that permitting Lucas to press his claim of a past deprivation on this appeal would be improper, since "the issues of whether and to what extent [Lucas] has incurred a temporary taking ... have simply never been addressed." Brief for Respondent 11. Yet Lucas had no reason to proceed on a "temporary taking" theory at trial, or even to seek remand for that purpose prior to submission of the case to the South Carolina Supreme Court, since as the Act then read, the taking was unconditional and permanent. Moreover, given the breadth of the South Carolina Supreme Court's holding and judgment, Lucas would plainly be unable (absent our intervention now) to obtain further state-court adjudication with respect to the 1988-1990 period.
to address that component as if the case were here on the pleadings alone. Lucas properly alleged injury in fact in his complaint. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 154 (complaint); id., at 156 (asking "damages for the temporary taking of his property" from the date of the 1988 Act's passage to "such time as this matter is finally resolved"). No more can reasonably be demanded. Cf. First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U. S. 304, 312-313 (1987). JUSTICE BLACKMUN finds it "baffling," post, at 1043, n. 5, that we grant standing here, whereas "just a few days ago, in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555 (1992)," we denied standing. He sees in that strong evidence to support his repeated imputations that the Court "presses" to take this case, post, at 1036, is "eager to decide" it, post, at 1045, and is unwilling to "be denied," post, at 1042. He has a point: The decisions are indeed very close in time, yet one grants standing and the other denies it. The distinction, however, rests in law rather than chronology. Lujan, since it involved the establishment of injury in fact at the summary judgment stage, required specific facts to be adduced by sworn testimony; had the same challenge to a generalized allegation of injury in fact been made at the pleading stage, it would have been unsuccessful.
"The enactment of the 1990 Act during the pendency of this appeal, with its provisions for special permits and other changes that may affect the plaintiffs, does not relieve us of the need to address the plaintiffs' claims under the provisions of the 1988 Act. Even if the amended Act cured all of the plaintiffs' concerns, the amendments would not foreclose the possibility that a taking had occurred during the years when the 1988 Act was in effect." Esposito v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 939 F.2d 165, 168 (1991).
Prior to Justice Holmes's exposition in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393 (1922), it was generally thought that the Takings Clause reached only a "direct appropriation" of property, Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457, 551 (1871), or the functional equivalent of a "practical ouster of [the owner's] possession," Transportation Co. v. Chicago, 99 U. S. 635, 642 (1879). See also Gibson v. United States, 166 U. S. 269, 275-276 (1897). Justice Holmes recognized in Mahon, however, that if the protection against physical appropriations of private property was to be meaningfully enforced, the government's power to redefine the range of interests included in the ownership of property was necessarily constrained by constitutional limits. 260 U. S., at 414-415. If, instead, the uses of private property were subject to unbridled, uncompensated qualification under the police power, "the natural tendency of human nature [would be] to extend the qualification more and more until at last private property disappear[ed]." Id., at 415. These considerations gave birth in that case to the oft-cited maxim that, "while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking." Ibid.
5JU8TICE BLACKMUN states that our "intense interest in Lucas' plight ... would have been more prudently expressed by vacating the judgment below and remanding for further consideration in light of the 1990 amendments" to the Beachfront Management Act. Post, at 1045, n. 7. That is a strange suggestion, given that the South Carolina Supreme Court rendered its categorical disposition in this case after the Act had been amended, and after it had been invited to consider the effect of those amendments on Lucas's case. We have no reason to believe that the justices of the South Carolina Supreme Court are any more desirous of using a narrower ground now than they were then; and neither "prudence" nor any other principle of judicial restraint requires that we remand to find out whether they have changed their mind.
Nevertheless, our decision in Mahon offered little insight into when, and under what circumstances, a given regulation would be seen as going "too far" for purposes of the Fifth Amendment. In 70-odd years of succeeding "regulatory takings" jurisprudence, we have generally eschewed any " 'set formula' " for determining how far is too far, preferring to "engag[e] in ... essentially ad hoc, factual inquiries." Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 124 (1978) (quoting Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U. S. 590,594 (1962)). See Epstein, Takings: Descent and Resurrection, 1987 S. Ct. Rev. 1, 4. We have, however, described at least two discrete categories of regulatory action as compensable without case-specific inquiry into the public interest advanced in support of the restraint. The first encompasses regulations that compel the property owner to suffer a physical "invasion" of his property. In general (at least with regard to permanent invasions), no matter how minute the intrusion, and no matter how weighty the public purpose behind it, we have required compensation. For example, in Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U. S. 419 (1982), we determined that New York's law requiring landlords to allow television cable companies to emplace cable facilities in their apartment buildings constituted a taking, id., at 435-440, even though the facilities occupied at most only 11/2 cubic feet of the landlords' property, see id., at 438, n. 16. See also United States v. Causby, 328 U. S. 256, 265, and n. 10 (1946) (physical invasions of airspace); cf. Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U. S. 164 (1979) (imposition of navigational servitude upon private marina).
6We will not attempt to respond to all of JUSTICE BLACKMUN'S mistaken citation of case precedent. Characteristic of its nature is his assertion that the cases we discuss here stand merely for the proposition "that proof that a regulation does not deny an owner economic use of his property is sufficient to defeat a facial takings challenge" and not for the point that "denial of such use is sufficient to establish a takings claim regardless of any other consideration." Post, at 1050, n. 11. The cases say, repeatedly and unmistakably, that" '[t]he test to be applied in considering [a] facial [takings] challenge is fairly straightforward. A statute regulating the uses that can be made of property effects a taking if it "denies an owner economically viable use of his land."'" Keystone, 480 U. S., at 495 (quoting Hodel, 452 U. S., at 295-296 (quoting Agins, 447 U. S., at 260)) (emphasis added).
JUSTICE BLACKMUN describes that rule (which we do not invent but merely apply today) as "alter[ing] the long-settled rules of review" by foisting on the State "the burden of showing [its] regulation is not a taking." Post, at 1045, 1046. This is of course wrong. Lucas had to do more than simply file a lawsuit to establish his constitutional entitlement; he had to show that the Beachfront Management Act denied him economically beneficial use of his land. Our analysis presumes the unconstitutionality of state land-use regulation only in the sense that any rule with exceptions presumes the invalidity of a law that violates it-for example, the rule generally prohibiting content-based restrictions on speech. See, e. g., Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Ed., 502 U. S. 105, 115 (1991) ("A statute is presumptively inconsistent with the First Amendment if it imposes a financial burden on speakers because of the content of their speech"). JUSTICE BLACKMUN'S real quarrel is with the substantive standard of liability we apply in this case, a longestablished standard we see no need to repudiate.
analyze the situation as one in which the owner has been deprived of all economically beneficial use of the burdened portion of the tract, or as one in which the owner has suffered a mere diminution in value of the tract as a whole. (For an extreme-and, we think, unsupportable-view of the relevant calculus, see Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 42 N. Y. 2d 324, 333-334, 366 N. E. 2d 1271, 1276-1277 (1977), aff'd, 438 U. S. 104 (1978), where the state court examined the diminution in a particular parcel's value produced by a municipal ordinance in light of total value of the takings claimant's other holdings in the vicinity.) Unsurprisingly, this uncertainty regarding the composition of the denominator in our "deprivation" fraction has produced inconsistent pronouncements by the Court. Compare Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 414 (1922) (law restricting subsurface extraction of coal held to effect a taking), with Keystone Bituminous Coal Assn. v. DeBenedictis, 480 U. S. 470, 497-502 (1987) (nearly identical law held not to effect a taking); see also id., at 515-520 (REHNQUIST, C. J., dissenting); Rose, Mahon Reconstructed: Why the Takings Issue is Still a Muddle, 57 S. Cal. L. Rev. 561,566-569 (1984). The answer to this difficult question may lie in how the owner's reasonable expectations have been shaped by the State's law of property-i. e., whether and to what degree the State's law has accorded legal recognition and protection to the particular interest in land with respect to which the takings claimant alleges a diminution in (or elimination of) value. In any event, we avoid this difficulty in the present case, since the "interest in land" that Lucas has pleaded (a fee simple interest) is an estate with a rich tradition of protection at common law, and since the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas found that the Beachfront Management Act left each of Lucas's beachfront lots without economic value.
u. S., at 124, in a manner that secures an "average reciprocity of advantage" to everyone concerned, Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S., at 415. And the functional basis for permitting the government, by regulation, to affect property values without compensation-that "Government hardly could go on if to some extent values incident to property could not be diminished without paying for every such change in the general law," id., at 413-does not apply to the relatively rare situations where the government has deprived a landowner of all economically beneficial uses.
provide for the use of eminent domain to impose servitudes on private scenic lands preventing developmental uses, or to acquire such lands altogether, suggest the practical equivalence in this setting of negative regulation and appropriation. See, e. g., 16 U. S. C. §410ff-1(a) (authorizing acquisition of "lands, waters, or interests [within Channel Islands National Park] (including but not limited to scenic easements)"); § 460aa-2(a) (authorizing acquisition of "any lands, or lesser interests therein, including mineral interests and scenic easements" within Sawtooth National Recreation Area); §§ 3921-3923 (authorizing acquisition of wetlands); N. C. Gen. Stat. § 113A-38 (1990) (authorizing acquisition of, inter alia, "'scenic easements'" within the North Carolina natural and scenic rivers system); Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 11-15-101 to 1115-108 (1987) (authorizing acquisition of "protective easements" and other rights in real property adjacent to State's historic, architectural, archaeological, or cultural resources).
Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 124 (1978). It is true that in at least some cases the landowner with 95% loss will get nothing, while the landowner with total loss will recover in full. But that occasional result is no more strange than the gross disparity between the landowner whose premises are taken for a highway (who recovers in full) and the landowner whose property is reduced to 5% of its former value by the highway (who recovers nothing). Takings law is full of these "allor-nothing" situations.
JUSTICE STEVENS similarly misinterprets our focus on "developmental" uses of property (the uses proscribed by the Beachfront Management Act) as betraying an "assumption that the only uses of property cognizable under the Constitution are developmental uses." Post, at 1065, n. 3. We make no such assumption. Though our prior takings cases evince an abiding concern for the productive use of, and economic investment in, land, there are plainly a number of noneconomic interests in land whose impairment will invite exceedingly close scrutiny under the Takings Clause. See, e. g., Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U. S. 419, 436 (1982) (interest in excluding strangers from one's land).
9 This finding was the premise of the petition for certiorari, and since it was not challenged in the brief in opposition we decline to entertain the argument in respondent's brief on the merits, see Brief for Respondent 45-50, that the finding was erroneous. Instead, we decide the question presented under the same factual assumptions as did the Supreme Court of South Carolina. See Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U. S. 808,816 (1985).
"(d) provides a natural health environment for the citizens of South Carolina to spend leisure time which serves their physical and mental wellbeing.
"(2) Beach/dune system vegetation is unique and extremely important to the vitality and preservation of the system.
"(3) Many miles of South Carolina's beaches have been identified as critically eroding.
"(4) ... [D]evelopment unwisely has been sited too close to the [beach/ dune] system. This type of development has jeopardized the stability of the beach/dune system, accelerated erosion, and endangered adjacent property. It is in both the public and private interests to protect the system from this unwise development.
"(5) The use of armoring in the form of hard erosion control devices such as seawalls, bulkheads, and rip-rap to protect erosion-threatened structures adjacent to the beach has not proven effective. These armoring devices have given a false sense of security to beachfront property owners. In reality, these hard structures, in many instances, have increased the vulnerability of beachfront property to damage from wind and waves while contributing to the deterioration and loss of the dry sand beach which is so important to the tourism industry.
petitioner "concede[d] that the beach/dune area of South Carolina's shores is an extremely valuable public resource; that the erection of new construction, inter alia, contributes to the erosion and destruction of this public resource; and that discouraging new construction in close proximity to the beach/dune area is necessary to prevent a great public harm." Id., at 382-383,404 S. E. 2d, at 898. In the court's view, these concessions brought petitioner's challenge within a long line of this Court's cases sustaining against Due Process and Takings Clause challenges the State's use of its "police powers" to enjoin a property owner from activities akin to public nuisances. See Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 (1887) (law prohibiting manufacture of alcoholic beverages); Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394 (1915) (law barring operation of brick mill in residential area); Miller v. Schoene, 276 U. S. 272 (1928) (order to destroy diseased cedar trees to prevent infection of nearby orchards); Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U. S. 590 (1962) (law effectively preventing continued operation of quarry in residential area).
dune system. It is in both the public and private interests to afford the beach/dune system space to accrete and erode in its natural cycle. This space can be provided only by discouraging new construction in close proximity to the beach/dune system and encouraging those who have erected structures too close to the system to retreat from it.
"(8) It is in the state's best interest to protect and to promote increased public access to South Carolina's beaches for out-of-state tourists and South Carolina residents alike." S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-250 (Supp. 1991).
"[T]he uses in issue in Hadacheck, Miller, and Goldblatt were perfectly lawful in themselves. They involved no 'blameworthiness, ... moral wrongdoing or conscious act of dangerous risk-taking which induce[d society] to shift the cost to a pa[rt]icular individual.' Sax, Takings and the Police Power, 74 Yale L. J. 36, 50 (1964). These cases are better understood as resting not on any supposed 'noxious' quality of the prohibited uses but rather on the ground that the restrictions were reasonably related to the implementation of a policy-not unlike historic preservation-expected to produce a widespread public benefit and applicable to all similarly situated property." 438 U. S., at 133-134, n. 30.
"land-use regulation does not effect a taking if it 'substantially advance[s] legitimate state interests' .... " Nollan, supra, at 834 (quoting Agins v. Tiburon, 447 U. S., at 260); see also Penn Central Transportation Co., supra, at 127; Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365, 387-388 (1926).
11 In the present case, in fact, some of the "[South Carolina] legislature's 'findings' " to which the South Carolina Supreme Court purported to defer in characterizing the purpose of the Act as "harm-preventing," 304 S. C. 376, 385, 404 S. E. 2d 895, 900 (1991), seem to us phrased in "benefitconferring" language instead. For example, they describe the importance of a construction ban in enhancing "South Carolina's annual tourism industry revenue," S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-250(1)(b) (Supp. 1991), in "provid[ing] habitat for numerous species of plants and animals, several of which are threatened or endangered," § 48-39-250(1)(c), and in "provid[ing] a natural healthy environment for the citizens of South Carolina to spend leisure time which serves their physical and mental well-being," § 48-39250(1)(d). It would be pointless to make the outcome of this case hang upon this terminology, since the same interests could readily be described in "harm-preventing" fashion.
if their structures are not "destroyed beyond repair," S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-290(B) (Supp. 1988)), and in the fact that the 1990 amendment authorizes the Council to issue permits for new construction in violation of the uniform prohibition, see S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-290(D)(1) (Supp. 1991).
the test for required compensation is whether the legislature has recited a harm-preventing justification for its action. See post, at 1039, 1040-1041, 1047-1051. Since such a justification can be formulated in practically every case, this amounts to a test of whether the legislature has a stupid staff. We think the Takings Clause requires courts to do more than insist upon artful harm-preventing characterizations.
13 E. g., Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 (1887) (prohibition upon use of a building as a brewery; other uses permitted); Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 531 (1914) (requirement that "pillar" of coal be left in ground to safeguard mine workers; mineral rights could otherwise be exploited); Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U. S. 171 (1915) (declaration that livery stable constituted a public nuisance; other uses of the property permitted); Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394 (1915) (prohibition of brick manufacturing in residential area; other uses permitted); Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U. S. 590 (1962) (prohibition on excavation; other uses permitted).
14 Drawing on our First Amendment jurisprudence, see, e. g., Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, 878-879 (1990), JUSTICE STEVENS would "loo[k] to the generality of a regulation of property" to determine whether compensation is owing. Post, at 1072. The Beachfront Management Act is general, in his view, because it "regulates the use of the coastline of the entire State." Post, at 1074. There may be some validity to the principle JUSTICE STEVENS proposes, but it does not properly apply to the present case. The equivalent of a law of general application that inhibits the practice of religion without being aimed at religion, see Oregon v. Smith, supra, is a law that destroys the value of land without being aimed at land. Perhaps such a law-the generally applicable criminal prohibition on the manufacturing of alcoholic beverages challenged in Mugler comes to mind-cannot constitute a compensable taking. See 123 U. S., at 655-656. But a regulation specifically directed to land use no more acquires immunity by plundering landowners generally than does a law specifically directed at religious practice acquire immunity by prohibiting all religions. JUSTICE STEVENS'S approach renders the Takings Clause little more than a particularized restatement of the Equal Protection Clause.
15 Mter accusing us of "launch[ing] a missile to kill a mouse," post, at 1036, JUSTICE BLACKMUN expends a good deal of throw-weight of his own upon a noncombatant, arguing that our description of the "understanding" of land ownership that informs the Takings Clause is not supported by early American experience. That is largely true, but entirely irrelevant. The practices of the States prior to incorporation of the Takings and Just Compensation Clauses, see Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226 (1897)-which, as JUSTICE BLACKMUN acknowledges, occasionally included outright physical appropriation of land without compensation, see post, at 1056-were out of accord with any plausible interpretation of those provisions. JUSTICE BLACKMUN is correct that early constitutional theorists did not believe the Takings Clause embraced regulations of property at all, see post, at 1057-1058, and n. 23, but even he does not suggest (explicitly, at least) that we renounce the Court's contrary conclusion in Mahon. Since the text of the Clause can be read to encompass regulatory as well as physical deprivations (in contrast to the text originally proposed by Madison, see Speech Proposing Bill of Rights (June 8, 1789), in 12 J. Madison, The Papers of James Madison 201 (C. Hobson, R. Rutland, W. Rachal, & J. Sisson ed. 1979) ("No person shall be ... obliged to relinquish his property, where it may be necessary for public use, without a just compensation"), we decline to do so as well.
16 The principal "otherwise" that we have in mind is litigation absolving the State (or private parties) of liability for the destruction of "real and personal property, in cases of actual necessity, to prevent the spreading of a fire" or to forestall other grave threats to the lives and property of others. Bowditch v. Boston, 101 U. S. 16, 18-19 (1880); see United States v. Pacific R. Co., 120 U. S. 227, 238-239 (1887).
17 Of course, the State may elect to rescind its regulation and thereby avoid having to pay compensation for a permanent deprivation. See First English Evangelical Lutheran Church, 482 U. S., at 321. But "where the [regulation has] already worked a taking of all use of property, no subsequent action by the government can relieve it of the duty to provide compensation for the period during which the taking was effective." Ibid.
posed by the claimant's proposed activities, see, e. g., Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 826, 827, the social value of the claimant's activities and their suitability to the locality in question, see, e. g., id., §§ 828(a) and (b), 831, and the relative ease with which the alleged harm can be avoided through measures taken by the claimant and the government (or adjacent private landowners) alike, see, e. g., id., §§827(e), 828(c), 830. The fact that a particular use has long been engaged in by similarly situated owners ordinarily imports a lack of any common-law prohibition (though changed circumstances or new knowledge may make what was previously permissible no longer so, see id., §827, Comment g. So also does the fact that other landowners, similarly situated, are permitted to continue the use denied to the claimant.
The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
The case comes to the Court in an unusual posture, as all my colleagues observe. Ante, at 1010-1011; post, at 1041 (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting); post, at 1061-1062 (STEVENS, J., dissenting); post, at 1076-1077 (statement of SOUTER, J.). After the suit was initiated but before it reached us, South Carolina amended its Beachfront Management Act to authorize the issuance of special permits at variance with the Act's general limitations. See S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-290(D)(1) (Supp. 1991). Petitioner has not applied for a special permit but may still do so. The availability of this alternative, if it can be invoked, may dispose of petitioner's claim of a permanent taking. As I read the Court's opinion, it does not decide the permanent taking claim, but neither does it foreclose the Supreme Court of South Carolina from considering the claim or requiring petitioner to pursue an administrative alternative not previously available.
18JUSTICE BLACKMUN decries our reliance on background nuisance principles at least in part because he believes those principles to be as manipulable as we find the "harm prevention" /"benefit conferral" dichotomy, see post, at 1054-1055. There is no doubt some leeway in a court's interpretation of what existing state law permits-but not remotely as much, we think, as in a legislative crafting of the reasons for its confiscatory regulation. We stress that an affirmative decree eliminating all economically beneficial uses may be defended only if an objectively reasonable application of relevant precedents would exclude those beneficial uses in the circumstances in which the land is presently found.
what has occurred in the past. The Beachfront Management Act was enacted in 1988. S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-250 et seq. (Supp. 1990). It may have deprived petitioner of the use of his land in an interim period. § 48-39-290(A). If this deprivation amounts to a taking, its limited duration will not bar constitutional relief. It is well established that temporary takings are as protected by the Constitution as are permanent ones. First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U. S. 304, 318 (1987).
The issues presented in the case are ready for our decision.
The Supreme Court of South Carolina decided the case on constitutional grounds, and its rulings are now before us. There exists no jurisdictional bar to our disposition, and prudential considerations ought not to militate against it. The State cannot complain of the manner in which the issues arose. Any uncertainty in this regard is attributable to the State, as a consequence of its amendment to the Beachfront Management Act. If the Takings Clause is to protect against temporary deprivations, as well as permanent ones, its enforcement must not be frustrated by a shifting background of state law.
Although we establish a framework for remand, moreover, we do not decide the ultimate question whether a temporary taking has occurred in this case. The facts necessary to the determination have not been developed in the record. Among the matters to be considered on remand must be whether petitioner had the intent and capacity to develop the property and failed to do so in the interim period because the State prevented him. Any failure by petitioner to comply with relevant administrative requirements will be part of that analysis.
ket value or resale potential. This is a curious finding, and I share the reservations of some of my colleagues about a finding that a beachfront lot loses all value because of a development restriction. Post, at 1043-1045 (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting); post, at 1065, n. 3 (STEVENS, J., dissenting); post, at 1076 (statement of SOUTER, J.). While the Supreme Court of South Carolina on remand need not consider the case subject to this constraint, we must accept the finding as entered below. See Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U. S. 808, 816 (1985). Accepting the finding as entered, it follows that petitioner is entitled to invoke the line of cases discussing regulations that deprive real property of all economic value. See Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 260 (1980).
The finding of no value must be considered under the Takings Clause by reference to the owner's reasonable, investment-backed expectations. Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U. S. 164, 175 (1979); Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 124 (1978); see also W B. Worthen Co. v. Kavanaugh, 295 U. S. 56 (1935). The Takings Clause, while conferring substantial protection on property owners, does not eliminate the police power of the State to enact limitations on the use of their property. Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 669 (1887). The rights conferred by the Takings Clause and the police power of the State may coexist without conflict. Property is bought and sold, investments are made, subject to the State's power to regulate. Where a taking is alleged from regulations which deprive the property of all value, the test must be whether the deprivation is contrary to reasonable, investmentbacked expectations.
There is an inherent tendency towards circularity in this synthesis, of course; for if the owner's reasonable expectations are shaped by what courts allow as a proper exercise of governmental authority, property tends to become what courts say it is. Some circularity must be tolerated in these matters, however, as it is in other spheres. E. g., Katz v.
United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967) (Fourth Amendment protections defined by reasonable expectations of privacy). The definition, moreover, is not circular in its entirety. The expectations protected by the Constitution are based on objective rules and customs that can be understood as reasonable by all parties involved.
In my view, reasonable expectations must be understood in light of the whole of our legal tradition. The common law of nuisance is too narrow a confine for the exercise of regulatory power in a complex and interdependent society. Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U. S. 590, 593 (1962). The State should not be prevented from enacting new regulatory initiatives in response to changing conditions, and courts must consider all reasonable expectations whatever their source. The Takings Clause does not require a static body of state property law; it protects private expectations to ensure private investment. I agree with the Court that nuisance prevention accords with the most common expectations of property owners who face regulation, but I do not believe this can be the sole source of state authority to impose severe restrictions. Coastal property may present such unique concerns for a fragile land system that the State can go further in regulating its development and use than the common law of nuisance might otherwise permit.
lot development and most other parcels had been improved, throwing the whole burden of the regulation on the remaining lots. This too must be measured in the balance. See Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 416 (1922).
Today the Court launches a missile to kill a mouse.
The State of South Carolina prohibited petitioner Lucas from building a permanent structure on his property from 1988 to 1990. Relying on an unreviewed (and implausible) state trial court finding that this restriction left Lucas' property valueless, this Court granted review to determine whether compensation must be paid in cases where the State prohibits all economic use of real estate. According to the Court, such an occasion never has arisen in any of our prior cases, and the Court imagines that it will arise "relatively rarely" or only in "extraordinary circumstances." Almost certainly it did not happen in this case.
Nonetheless, the Court presses on to decide the issue, and as it does, it ignores its jurisdictional limits, remakes its traditional rules of review, and creates simultaneously a new categorical rule and an exception (neither of which is rooted in our prior case law, common law, or common sense). I protest not only the Court's decision, but each step taken to reach it. More fundamentally, I question the Court's wisdom in issuing sweeping new rules to decide such a narrow case. Surely, as JUSTICE KENNEDY demonstrates, the Court could have reached the result it wanted without inflicting this damage upon our Takings Clause jurisprudence.
the Court's missile, or save the targeted mouse, but because I hope perhaps to limit the collateral damage.
In 1972 Congress passed the Coastal Zone Management Act. 16 U. S. C. § 1451 et seq. The Act was designed to provide States with money and incentives to carry out Congress' goal of protecting the public from shoreline erosion and coastal hazards. In the 1980 amendments to the Act, Congress directed States to enhance their coastal programs by "[p]reventing or significantly reducing threats to life and the destruction of property by eliminating development and redevelopment in high-hazard areas." 1 16 U. S. C. § 1456b(a)(2) (1988 ed., Supp. II).
South Carolina began implementing the congressional directive by enacting the South Carolina Coastal Zone Management Act of 1977. Under the 1977 Act, any construction activity in what was designated the "critical area" required a permit from the South Carolina Coastal Council (Council), and the construction of any habitable structure was prohibited. The 1977 critical area was relatively narrow.
1 The country has come to recognize that uncontrolled beachfront development can cause serious damage to life and property. See Brief for Sierra Club et al. as Amici Curiae 2-5. Hurricane Hugo's September 1989 attack upon South Carolina's coastline, for example, caused 29 deaths and approximately $6 billion in property damage, much of it the result of uncontrolled beachfront development. See Zalkin, Shifting Sands and Shifting Doctrines: The Supreme Court's Changing Takings Doctrine and South Carolina's Coastal Zone Statute, 79 Calif. L. Rev. 205, 212-213 (1991). The beachfront buildings are not only themselves destroyed in such a storm, "but they are often driven, like battering rams, into adjacent inland homes." Ibid. Moreover, the development often destroys the natural sand dune barriers that provide storm breaks. Ibid.
propose possible solutions. In March 1987, the Committee found that South Carolina's beaches were "critically eroding," and proposed land-use restrictions. Report of the South Carolina Blue Ribbon Committee on Beachfront Management i, 6-10 (Mar. 1987). In response, South Carolina enacted the Beachfront Management Act on July 1, 1988. S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-250 et seq. (Supp. 1990). The 1988 Act did not change the uses permitted within the designated critical areas. Rather, it enlarged those areas to encompass the distance from the mean high watermark to a setback line established on the basis of "the best scientific and historical data" available.2 S. C. Code Ann. §48-39-280 (Supp. 1991).
2 The setback line was determined by calculating the distance landward from the crest of an ideal oceanfront sand dune which is 40 times the annual erosion rate. S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-280 (Supp. 1991).
3 The properties were sold frequently at rapidly escalating prices before Lucas purchased them. Lot 22 was first sold in 1979 for $96,660, sold in 1984 for $187,500, then in 1985 for $260,000, and, finally, to Lucas in 1986 for $475,000. He estimated its worth in 1991 at $650,000. Lot 24 had a similar past. The record does not indicate who purchased the properties prior to Lucas, or why none of the purchasers held on to the lots and built on them. Tr. 44-46.
sandbagging to protect property in the Wild Dune development. Id., at 99. Determining that local habitable structures were in imminent danger of collapse, the Council issued permits for two rock revetments to protect condominium developments near petitioner's property from erosion; one of the revetments extends more than halfway onto one of his lots. Id., at 102.
The South Carolina Supreme Court found that the Beachfront Management Act did not take petitioner's property without compensation. The decision rested on two premises that until today were unassailable-that the State has the power to prevent any use of property it finds to be harmful to its citizens, and that a state statute is entitled to a presumption of constitutionality.
The Beachfront Management Act includes a finding by the South Carolina General Assembly that the beach/dune system serves the purpose of "protect[ing] life and property by serving as a storm barrier which dissipates wave energy and contributes to shoreline stability in an economical and effective manner." S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-250(1)(a) (Supp. 1990). The General Assembly also found that "development unwisely has been sited too close to the [beach/dune] system. This type of development has jeopardized the stability of the beach/dune system, accelerated erosion, and endangered adjacent property." §48-39-250(4); see also §48-39-250(6) (discussing the need to "afford the beach/dune system space to accrete and erode").
force it." Keystone Bituminous Coal Assn. v. DeBenedictis, 480 U. S. 470, 491-492 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also id., at 488-489, and n. 18. The Court consistently has upheld regulations imposed to arrest a significant threat to the common welfare, whatever their economic effect on the owner. See, e. g., Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U. S. 590, 592-593 (1962); Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365 (1926); Gorieb v. Fox, 274 U. S. 603, 608 (1927); Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 (1887).
Petitioner never challenged the legislature's findings that a building ban was necessary to protect property and life. Nor did he contend that the threatened harm was not sufficiently serious to make building a house in a particular location a "harmful" use, that the legislature had not made sufficient findings, or that the legislature was motivated by anything other than a desire to minimize damage to coastal areas. Indeed, petitioner objected at trial that evidence as to the purposes of the setback requirement was irrelevant. Tr. 68. The South Carolina Supreme Court accordingly understood petitioner not to contest the State's position that "discouraging new construction in close proximity to the beach/dune area is necessary to prevent a great public harm," 304 S. C. 376, 383, 404 S. E. 2d 895, 898 (1991), and "to prevent serious injury to the community." Id., at 387, 404 S. E. 2d, at 901. The court considered itself "bound by these uncontested legislative findings ... [in the absence of] any attack whatsoever on the statutory scheme." Id., at 383, 404 S. E. 2d, at 898.
of harm to life and property from building is sufficient to prohibit that use under this Court's cases, the South Carolina Supreme Court correctly found no taking.
My disagreement with the Court begins with its decision to review this case. This Court has held consistently that a land-use challenge is not ripe for review until there is a final decision about what uses of the property will be permitted. The ripeness requirement is not simply a gesture of good will to land-use planners. In the absence of "a final and authoritative determination of the type and intensity of development legally permitted on the subject property," MacDonald, Sommer & Frates v. Yolo County, 477 U. S. 340, 348 (1986), and the utilization of state procedures for just compensation, there is no final judgment, and in the absence of a final judgment there is no jurisdiction, see San Diego Gas & Electric Co. v. San Diego, 450 U. S. 621, 633 (1981); Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 260 (1980).
This rule is "compelled by the very nature of the inquiry required by the Just Compensation Clause," because the factors applied in deciding a takings claim "simply cannot be evaluated until the administrative agency has arrived at a final, definitive position regarding how it will apply the regulations at issue to the particular land in question." Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U. S. 172, 190, 191 (1985). See also MacDonald, Sommer & Frates, 477 U. S., at 348 ("A court cannot determine whether a regulation has gone 'too far' unless it knows how far the regulation goes") (citation omitted).
The Court admits that the 1990 amendments to the Beachfront Management Act allowing special permits preclude Lucas from asserting that his property has been permanently taken. See ante, at 1011-1012. The Court agrees that such a claim would not be ripe because there has been no final decision by respondent on what uses will be permitted.
"lac[k] jurisdiction in this matter because the Plaintiff has sought no authorization from Council for use of his property, has not challenged the location of the baseline or setback line as alleged in the Complaint and because no final agency decision has been rendered concerning use of his property or location of said baseline or setback line." Tr. 10 (answer, as amended).
Although the Council's plea has been ignored by every court, it is undoubtedly correct.
4The Court's reliance, ante, at 1013, on Esposito v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 939 F.2d 165, 168 (CA4 1991), cert. denied, post, p. 1219, in support of its decision to consider Lucas' temporary takings claim ripe is misplaced. In Esposito the plaintiffs brought a facial challenge to the mere enactment of the Act. Here, of course, Lucas has brought an asapplied challenge. See Brief for Petitioner 16. Facial challenges are ripe when the Act is passed; applied challenges require a final decision on the Act's application to the property in question.
final decision would have been to alter the setback line, eliminating the construction ban on Lucas' property.
5 Even more baffling, given its decision, just a few days ago, in Lujan v.
Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555 (1992), the Court decides petitioner has demonstrated injury in fact. In his complaint, petitioner made no allegations that he had any definite plans for using his property. App. to Pet. for Cert. 153-156. At trial, Lucas testified that he had house plans drawn up, but that he was "in no hurry" to build "because the lot was appreciating in value." Tr. 28-29. The trial court made no findings of fact that Lucas had any plans to use the property from 1988 to 1990. "'[S]ome day' intentions-without any description of concrete plans, or indeed even any specification of when the some day will be-do not support a finding of the 'actual or imminent' injury that our cases require." 504 U. S., at 564. The Court circumvents Defenders of Wildlife by deciding to resolve this case as if it arrived on the pleadings alone. But it did not. Lucas had a full trial on his claim for '''damages for the temporary taking of his property' from the date of the 1988 Act's passage to 'such time as this matter is finally resolved,'" ante, at 1013, n. 3, quoting the complaint, and failed to demonstrate any immediate concrete plans to build or sell.
had lost all economic value.6 This finding is almost certainly erroneous. Petitioner still can enjoy other attributes of ownership, such as the right to exclude others, "one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property." Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U. S. 164, 176 (1979). Petitioner can picnic, swim, camp in a tent, or live on the property in a movable trailer. State courts frequently have recognized that land has economic value where the only residual economic uses are recreation or camping. See, e. g., Turnpike Realty Co. v. Dedham, 362 Mass. 221, 284 N. E. 2d 891 (1972); Turner v. County of Del Norte, 24 Cal. App. 3d 311, 101 Cal. Rptr. 93 (1972), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 1108 (1973); Hall v. Board of Environmental Protection, 528 A. 2d 453 (Me. 1987). Petitioner also retains the right to alienate the land, which would have value for neighbors and for those prepared to enjoy proximity to the ocean without a house.
6 Respondent contested the findings of fact of the trial court in the South Carolina Supreme Court, but that court did not resolve the issue. This Court's decision to assume for its purposes that petitioner had been denied all economic use of his land does not, of course, dispose of the issue on remand.
was "total." Record 128 (findings of fact). I agree with the Court, ante, at 1020, n. 9, that it has the power to decide a case that turns on an erroneous finding, but I question the wisdom of deciding an issue based on a factual premise that does not exist in this case, and in the judgment of the Court will exist in the future only in "extraordinary circumstance[s]," ante, at 1017.
Clearly, the Court was eager to decide this case.7 But eagerness, in the absence of proper jurisdiction, must-and in this case should have been-met with restraint.
The Court's willingness to dispense with precedent in its haste to reach a result is not limited to its initial jurisdictional decision. The Court also alters the long-settled rules of review.
7 The Court overlooks the lack of a ripe and justiciable claim apparently out of concern that in the absence of its intervention Lucas will be unable to obtain further adjudication of his temporary takings claim. The Court chastises respondent for arguing that Lucas' temporary takings claim is premature because it failed "so much as [to] commen[t]" upon the effect of the South Carolina Supreme Court's decision on petitioner's ability to obtain relief for the 2-year period, and it frets that Lucas would "be unable (absent our intervention now) to obtain further state-court adjudication with respect to the 1988-1990 period." Ante, at 1012. Whatever the explanation for the Court's intense interest in Lucas' plight when ordinarily we are more cautious in granting discretionary review, the concern would have been more prudently expressed by vacating the judgment below and remanding for further consideration in light of the 1990 amendments. At that point, petitioner could have brought a temporary takings claim in the state courts.
ker, 348 U. S. 26, 32 (1954). See also Sweet v. Rechel, 159 U. S. 380, 392 (1895); Euclid, 272 U. S., at 388 ("If the validity of the legislative classification for zoning purposes be fairly debatable, the legislative judgment must be allowed to control").
Accordingly, this Court always has required plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of an ordinance to provide "some factual foundation of record" that contravenes the legislative findings. O'Gorman & Young, 282 U. S., at 258. In the absence of such proof, "the presumption of constitutionality must prevail." Id., at 257. We only recently have reaffirmed that claimants have the burden of showing a state law constitutes a taking. See Keystone Bituminous Coal, 480 U. S., at 485. See also Goldblatt, 369 U. S., at 594 (citing "the usual presumption of constitutionality" that applies to statutes attacked as takings).
Rather than invoking these traditional rules, the Court decides the State has the burden to convince the courts that its legislative judgments are correct. Despite Lucas' complete failure to contest the legislature's findings of serious harm to life and property if a permanent structure is built, the Court decides that the legislative findings are not sufficient to justify the use prohibition. Instead, the Court "emphasize[s]" the State must do more than merely proffer its legislative judgments to avoid invalidating its law. Ante, at 1031. In this case, apparently, the State now has the burden of showing the regulation is not a taking. The Court offers no justification for its sudden hostility toward state legislators, and I doubt that it could.
prohibit is a background common-law nuisance or property principle. See ante, at 1028-1031.
I first question the Court's rationale in creating a category that obviates a "case-specific inquiry into the public interest advanced," ante, at 1015, if all economic value has been lost. If one fact about the Court's takings jurisprudence can be stated without contradiction, it is that "the particular circumstances of each case" determine whether a specific restriction will be rendered invalid by the government's failure to pay compensation. United States v. Central Eureka Mining Co., 357 U. S. 155, 168 (1958). This is so because although we have articulated certain factors to be considered, including the economic impact on the property owner, the ultimate conclusion "necessarily requires a weighing of private and public interests." Agins, 447 U. S., at 261. When the government regulation prevents the owner from any economically valuable use of his property, the private interest is unquestionably substantial, but we have never before held that no public interest can outweigh it. Instead the Court's prior decisions "uniformly reject the proposition that diminution in property value, standing alone, can establish a 'taking.''' Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 131 (1978).
u. S., at 668-669. On this basis, the Court upheld an ordinance effectively prohibiting operation of a previously lawful brewery, although the "establishments will become of no value as property." Id., at 664; see also id., at 668.
Mugler was only the beginning in a long line of cases.8 In Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678 (1888), the Court upheld legislation prohibiting the manufacture of oleomargarine, despite the owner's allegation that "if prevented from continuing it, the value of his property employed therein would be entirely lost and he be deprived of the means of livelihood." Id., at 682. In Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394 (1915), the Court upheld an ordinance prohibiting a brickyard, although the owner had made excavations on the land that prevented it from being utilized for any purpose but a brickyard. Id., at 405. In Miller v. Schoene, 276 U. S. 272 (1928), the Court held that the Fifth Amendment did not require Virginia to pay compensation to the owner of cedar trees ordered destroyed to prevent a disease from spreading to nearby apple orchards. The "preferment of [the public interest] over the property interest of the individual, to the extent even of its destruction, is one of the distinguishing characteristics of every exercise of the police power which affects property." Id., at 280. Again, in Omnia Commercial Co. v. United States, 261 U. S. 502 (1923), the Court stated that "destruction of, or injury to, property is frequently accomplished without a 'taking' in the constitutional sense." Id., at 508.
8 Prior to Mugler, the Court had held that owners whose real property is wholly destroyed to prevent the spread of a fire are not entitled to compensation. Bowditch v. Boston, 101 U. S. 16, 18-19 (1880). And the Court recognized in the License Cases, 5 How. 504, 589 (1847) (opinion of McLean, J.), that "[t]he acknowledged police power of a State extends often to the destruction of property."
u. S., at 596. "Although a comparison of values before and after is relevant," the Court stated, "it is by no means conclusive." 9 Id., at 594. In 1978, the Court declared that "in instances in which a state tribunal reasonably concluded that 'the health, safety, morals, or general welfare' would be promoted by prohibiting particular contemplated uses of land, this Court has upheld land-use regulation that destroyed ... recognized real property interests." Penn Central Transp. Co., 438 U. S., at 125. In First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U. S. 304 (1987), the owner alleged that a floodplain ordinance had deprived it of "all use" of the property. Id., at 312. The Court remanded the case for consideration whether, even if the ordinance denied the owner all use, it could be justified as a safety measure.10 Id., at 313. And in Keystone Bituminous Coal, the Court summarized over 100 years of precedent: "[T]he Court has repeatedly upheld regulations that destroy or adversely affect real property interests." 11 480 U. S., at 489, n. 18.
9 That same year, an appeal came to the Court asking "[w]hether zoning ordinances which altogether destroy the worth of valuable land by prohibiting the only economic use of which it is capable effect a taking of real property without compensation." Juris. Statement, O. T. 1962, No. 307, p. 5. The Court dismissed the appeal for lack of a substantial federal question. Consolidated Rock Products Co. v. Los Angeles, 57 Cal. 2d 515, 370 P. 2d 342, appeal dism'd, 371 U. S. 36 (1962).
if total value has been taken. The Court has indicated that proof that a regulation does not deny an owner economic use of his property is sufficient to defeat a facial takings challenge. See Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 295-297 (1981). But the conclusion that a regulation is not on its face a taking because it allows the landowner some economic use of property is a far cry from the proposition that denial of such use is sufficient to establish a takings claim regardless of any other consideration. The Court never has accepted the latter proposition.
The Court relies today on dicta in Agins, Hodel, Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U. S. 825 (1987), and Keystone Bituminous Coal Assn. v. DeBenedictis, 480 U. S. 470 (1987), for its new categorical rule. Ante, at 1015-1016. I prefer to rely on the directly contrary holdings in cases such as Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 (1887), and Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394 (1915), not to mention contrary statements in the very cases on which the Court relies. See Agins, 447 U. S., at 260-262; Keystone Bituminous Coal, 480 U. S., at 489, n. 18,491-492.
These cases rest on the principle that the State has full power to prohibit an owner's use of property if it is harmful to the public. "[S]ince no individual has a right to use his property so as to create a nuisance or otherwise harm others, the State has not 'taken' anything when it asserts its power to enjoin the nuisance-like activity." Keystone Bituminous Coal, 480 U. S., at 491, n. 20. It would make no sense under this theory to suggest that an owner has a constitutionally protected right to harm others, if only he makes the proper showing of economic loss.14 See Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 418 (1922) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) ("Restriction upon [harmful] use does not become inappropriate as a means, merely because it deprives the owner of the only use to which the property can then be profitably put").
spoke of preferment of the public interest over the property interest of the individual, "to the extent even of its destruction." Id., at 280.
13 The Court seeks to disavow the holdings and reasoning of Mugler and subsequent cases by explaining that they were the Court's early efforts to define the scope of the police power. There is language in the earliest takings cases suggesting that the police power was considered to be the power simply to prevent harms. Subsequently, the Court expanded its understanding of what were government's legitimate interests. But it does not follow that the holding of those early cases-that harmful and noxious uses of property can be forbidden whatever the harm to the property owner and without the payment of compensation-was repudiated. To the contrary, as the Court consciously expanded the scope of the police power beyond preventing harm, it clarified that there was a core of public interests that overrode any private interest. See Keystone Bituminous Coal, 480 U. S., at 491, n. 20.
14 "Indeed, it would be extraordinary to construe the Constitution to require a government to compensate private landowners because it denied them 'the right' to use property which cannot be used without risking injury and death." First Lutheran Church, 210 Cal. App. 3d, at 1366, 258 Cal. Rptr., at 901-902.
Ultimately even the Court cannot embrace the full implications of its per se rule: It eventually agrees that there cannot be a categorical rule for a taking based on economic value that wholly disregards the public need asserted. Instead, the Court decides that it will permit a State to regulate all economic value only if the State prohibits uses that would not be permitted under "background principles of nuisance and property law." 15 Ante, at 1031.
15 Although it refers to state nuisance and property law, the Court apparently does not mean just any state nuisance and property law. Public nuisance was first a common-law creation, see Newark, The Boundaries of Nuisance, 65 L. Q. Rev. 480, 482 (1949) (attributing development of nuisance to 1535), but by the 1800's in both the United States and England, legislatures had the power to define what is a public nuisance, and particular uses often have been selectively targeted. See Prosser, Private Action for Public Nuisance, 52 Va. L. Rev. 997, 999-1000 (1966); J. Stephen, A General View of the Criminal Law of England 105-107 (2d ed. 1890). The Court's references to "common-law" background principles, however, indicate that legislative determinations do not constitute "state nuisance and property law" for the Court.
16 Also, until today the fact that the regulation prohibited uses that were lawful at the time the owner purchased did not determine the constitutional question. The brewery, the brickyard, the cedar trees, and the gravel pit were all perfectly legitimate uses prior to the passage of the regulation. See Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S., at 654; Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394 (1915); Miller, 276 U. S., at 272; Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U. S. 590 (1962). This Court explicitly acknowledged in Hadacheck that "[a] vested interest cannot be asserted against [the police power] because of conditions once obtaining. To so hold would preclude development and fix a city forever in its primitive conditions." 239 U. S., at 410 (citation omitted).
The Court rejects the notion that the State always can prohibit uses it deems a harm to the public without granting compensation because "the distinction between 'harmpreventing' and 'benefit-conferring' regulation is often in the eye of the beholder." Ante, at 1024. Since the characterization will depend "primarily upon one's evaluation of the worth of competing uses of real estate," ante, at 1025, the Court decides a legislative judgment of this kind no longer can provide the desired "objective, value-free basis" for upholding a regulation, ante, at 1026. The Court, however, fails to explain how its proposed common-law alternative escapes the same trap.
It found the cedar trees harmful, and their destruction not a taking, whether or not they were a nuisance. Justice Holmes apparently believed that such an approach did not repudiate his earlier opinion. Moreover, this Court already has been over this ground five years ago, and at that point rejected the assertion that Pennsylvania Coal was inconsistent with Mugler, Hadacheck, Miller, or the others in the string of "noxious use" cases, recognizing instead that the nature of the State's action is critical in takings analysis. Keystone Bituminous Coal, 480 U. S., at 490.
The threshold inquiry for imposition of the Court's new rule, "deprivation of all economically valuable use," itself cannot be determined objectively. As the Court admits, whether the owner has been deprived of all economic value of his property will depend on how "property" is defined. The "composition of the denominator in our 'deprivation' fraction," ante, at 1017, n. 7, is the dispositive inquiry. Yet there is no "objective" way to define what that denominator should be. "We have long understood that any land-use regulation can be characterized as the 'total' deprivation of an aptly defined entitlement .... Alternatively, the same regulation can always be characterized as a mere 'partial' withdrawal from full, unencumbered ownership of the landholding affected by the regulation .... " 18 Michelman, Takings, 1987, 88 Colum. L. Rev. 1600, 1614 (1988).
The Court's decision in Keystone Bituminous Coal illustrates this principle perfectly. In Keystone, the Court determined that the "support estate" was "merely a part of the entire bundle of rights possessed by the owner." 480 U. S., at 501. Thus, the Court concluded that the support estate's destruction merely eliminated one segment of the total property. Ibid. The dissent, however, characterized the support estate as a distinct property interest that was wholly destroyed. Id., at 519. The Court could agree on no "value-free basis" to resolve this dispute.
18 See also Michelman, Property, Utility, and Fairness, Comments on the Ethical Foundations of "Just Compensation" Law, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 1165, 1192-1193 (1967); Sax, Takings and the Police Power, 74 Yale L. J. 36, 60 (1964).
sance law is simply a determination whether a particular use causes harm. See Prosser, Private Action for Public Nuisance, 52 Va. L. Rev. 997 (1966) ("Nuisance is a French word which means nothing more than harm"). There is nothing magical in the reasoning of judges long dead. They determined a harm in the same way as state judges and legislatures do today. If judges in the 18th and 19th centuries can distinguish a harm from a benefit, why not judges in the 20th century, and if judges can, why not legislators? There simply is no reason to believe that new interpretations of the hoary common-law nuisance doctrine will be particularly "objective" or "value free." 19 Once one abandons the level of generality of sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas, ante, at 1031, one searches in vain, I think, for anything resembling a principle in the common law of nuisance.
19 "There is perhaps no more impenetrable jungle in the entire law than that which surrounds the word 'nuisance.' It has meant all things to all people, and has been applied indiscriminately to everything from an alarming advertisement to a cockroach baked in a pie." W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on The Law of Torts 616 (5th ed. 1984) (footnotes omitted). It is an area of law that "straddles the legal universe, virtually defies synthesis, and generates case law to suit every taste." W. Rodgers, Environmental Law § 2.4, p. 48 (1986) (footnotes omitted). The Court itself has noted that "nuisance concepts" are "often vague and indeterminate." Milwaukee v. Illinois, 451 U. S. 304, 317 (1981).
opinion where our "historical compact" or "citizens' understanding" comes from, but it does not appear to be history.
The principle that the State should compensate individuals for property taken for public use was not widely established in America at the time of the Revolution.
"The colonists ... inherited ... a concept of property which permitted extensive regulation of the use of that property for the public benefit-regulation that could even go so far as to deny all productive use of the property to the owner if, as Coke himself stated, the regulation 'extends to the public benefit ... for this is for the public, and every one hath benefit by it.'" F. Bosselman, D. Callies, & J. Banta, The Taking Issue 80-81 (1973), quoting The Case of the King's Prerogative in Saltpetre, 12 Co. Rep. 12-13 (1606) (hereinafter Bosselman).
20 See generally Sax, 74 Yale L. J., at 56-59. "The evidence certainly seems to indicate that the mere fact that government activity destroyed existing economic advantages and power did not disturb [the English theorists who formulated the compensation notion] at all." Id., at 56. Professor Sax contends that even Blackstone, "remembered champion of the language of private property," did not believe that the Compensation Clause was meant to preserve economic value. Id., at 58-59.
21 In 1796, the attorney general of South Carolina responded to property holders' demand for compensation when the State took their land to build a road by arguing that "there is not one instance on record, and certainly none within the memory of the oldest man now living, of any demand being made for compensation for the soil or freehold of the lands." Lindsay v. Commissioners, 2 S. C. L. 38, 49 (1796).
22 Only the Constitutions of Vermont and Massachusetts required that compensation be paid when private property was taken for public use; and although eminent domain was mentioned in the Pennsylvania Constitution, its sole requirement was that property not be taken without the consent of the legislature. See Grant, The "Higher Law" Background of the Law of Eminent Domain, in 2 Selected Essays on Constitutional Law 912, 915916 (1938). By 1868, five of the original States still had no just compensation clauses in their Constitutions. Ibid.
23 James Madison, author of the Takings Clause, apparently intended it to apply only to direct, physical takings of property by the Federal Government. See Treanor, The Origins and Original Significance of the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment, 94 Yale L. J. 694, 711 (1985). Professor Sax argues that although "contemporaneous commentary upon the meaning of the compensation clause is in very short supply," 74 Yale L. J., at 58, the "few authorities that are available" indicate that the Clause was "designed to prevent arbitrary government action," not to protect economic value. Id., at 58-60.
the constitution protected possession only, and not value." Siegel, Understanding the Nineteenth Century Contract Clause: The Role of the Property-Privilege Distinction and "Takings" Clause Jurisprudence, 60 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1, 76 (1986); Bosselman 106. Even indirect and consequential injuries to property resulting from regulations were excluded from the definition of a taking. See ibid.; Callender v. Marsh, 1 Pick. 418, 430 (Mass. 1823).
Even when courts began to consider that regulation in some situations could constitute a taking, they continued to uphold bans on particular uses without paying compensation, notwithstanding the economic impact, under the rationale that no one can obtain a vested right to injure or endanger the public.24 In the Coates cases, for example, the Supreme Court of New York found no taking in New York's ban on the interment of the dead within the city, although "no other use can be made of these lands." Coates v. City of New York, 7 Cow. 585, 592 (N. Y. 1827). See also Brick Presbyterian Church v. City of New York, 5 Cow. 538 (N. Y. 1826); Commonwealth v. Alger, 7 Cush. 53, 59, 104 (Mass. 1851); St. Louis Gunning Advertisement Co. v. St. Louis, 235 Mo. 99, 146, 137 S. W. 929, 942 (1911), appeal dism'd, 231 U. S. 761 (1913). More recent cases reach the same result. See Consolidated Rock Products Co. v. Los Angeles, 57 Cal. 2d 515, 370 P. 2d 342, appeal dism'd, 371 U. S. 36 (1962); Nassr v.
24 For this reason, the retroactive application of the regulation to formerly lawful uses was not a controlling distinction in the past. "Nor can it make any difference that the right is purchased previous to the passage of the by-law," for "[e]very right, from an absolute ownership in property, down to a mere easement, is purchased and holden subject to the restriction, that it shall be so exercised as not to injure others. Though, at the time, it be remote and inoffensive, the purchaser is bound to know, at his peril, that it may become otherwise." Coates v. City of New York, 7 Cow. 585, 605 (N. Y. 1827). See also Brick Presbyterian Church v. City of New York, 5 Cow. 538, 542 (N. Y. 1826); Commonwealth v. Tewksbury, 11 Metc. 55 (Mass. 1846); State v. Paul, 5 R. 1. 185 (1858).
Commonwealth, 394 Mass. 767, 477 N. E. 2d 987 (1985); Eno v. Burlington, 125 Vt. 8, 209 A. 2d 499 (1965); Turner v. County of Del Norte, 24 Cal. App. 3d 311, 101 Cal. Rptr. 93 (1972).
In addition, state courts historically have been less likely to find that a government action constitutes a taking when the affected land is undeveloped. According to the South Carolina court, the power of the legislature to take unimproved land without providing compensation was sanctioned by "ancient rights and principles." Lindsay v. Commissioners, 2 S. C. L. 38, 57 (1796). "Except for Massachusetts, no colony appears to have paid compensation when it built a state-owned road across unimproved land. Legislatures provided compensation only for enclosed or improved land." Treanor, 94 Yale L. J., at 695 (footnotes omitted). This rule was followed by some States into the 1800's. See Horwitz 63-65.
With similar result, the common agrarian conception of property limited owners to "natural" uses of their land prior to and during much of the 18th century. See id., at 32. Thus, for example, the owner could build nothing on his land that would alter the natural flow of water. See id., at 44; see also, e. g., Merritt v. Parker, 1 Coxe 460, 463 (N. J. 1795). Some more recent state courts still follow this reasoning. See, e. g., Just v. Marinette County, 56 Wis. 2d 7, 201 N. W. 2d 761, 768 (1972).
Nor does history indicate any common-law limit on the State's power to regulate harmful uses even to the point of destroying all economic value. Nothing in the discussions in Congress concerning the Takings Clause indicates that the Clause was limited by the common-law nuisance doctrine. Common-law courts themselves rejected such an understanding. They regularly recognized that it is "for the legislature to interpose, and by positive enactment to prohibit a use of property which would be injurious to the public."
Tewksbury, 11 Mete., at 57.25 Chief Justice Shaw explained in upholding a regulation prohibiting construction of wharves, the existence of a taking did not depend on "whether a certain erection in tide water is a nuisance at common law or not." Alger, 7 Cush., at 104; see also State v. Paul, 5 R. 1. 185, 193 (1858); Commonwealth v. Parks, 155 Mass. 531, 532, 30 N. E. 174 (1892) (Holmes, J.) ("[T]he legislature may change the common law as to nuisances, and may move the line either way, so as to make things nuisances which were not so, or to make things lawful which were nuisances").
The Court makes sweeping and, in my view, misguided and unsupported changes in our takings doctrine. While it limits these changes to the most narrow subset of government regulation-those that eliminate all economic value from land-these changes go far beyond what is necessary to secure petitioner Lucas' private benefit. One hopes they do not go beyond the narrow confines the Court assigns them to today.
Today the Court restricts one judge-made rule and expands another. In my opinion it errs on both counts. Proper application of the doctrine of judicial restraint would avoid the premature adjudication of an important constitutional question. Proper respect for our precedents would avoid an illogical expansion of the concept of "regulatory takings."
As the Court notes, ante, at 1010-1011, South Carolina's Beachfront Management Act has been amended to permit some construction of residences seaward of the line that frustrated petitioner's proposed use of his property. Until he exhausts his right to apply for a special permit under that amendment, petitioner is not entitled to an adjudication by this Court of the merits of his permanent takings claim. MacDonald, Sommer & Frates v. Yolo County, 477 U. S. 340, 351 (1986).
whether or not the prohibition was a common-law nuisance, and whether or not the prohibition occurred subsequent to the purchase. See supra, at 1047-1048, 1052-1053, and n. 16. I cannot imagine where the Court finds its "historical compact," if not in history.
the delay caused by the temporary existence of the absolute statutory ban on construction. We cannot be sure, however, that that delay caused petitioner any harm because the record does not tell us whether his building plans were even temporarily frustrated by the enactment of the statute.1 Thus, on the present record it is entirely possible that petitioner has suffered no injury in fact even if the state statute was unconstitutional when he filed this lawsuit.
It is true, as the Court notes, that the argument against deciding the constitutional issue in this case rests on prudential considerations rather than a want of jurisdiction. I think it equally clear, however, that a Court less eager to decide the merits would follow the wise counsel of Justice Brandeis in his deservedly famous concurring opinion in Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 341 (1936). As he explained, the Court has developed "for its own governance in the cases confessedly within its jurisdiction, a series of rules under which it has avoided passing upon a large part of all the constitutional questions pressed upon it for decision." Id., at 346. The second of those rules applies directly to this case.
"2. The Court will not 'anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it.' Liverpool, N. Y. & P. S. S. Co. v. Emigration Commissioners, 113 U. S. 33, 39; [citing five additional cases]. 'It is not the habit of the Court to decide questions of a constitutional nature unless absolutely necessary to a decision of the case.' Burton v. United States, 196 U. S. 283, 295." Id., at 346-347.
1 In this regard, it is noteworthy that petitioner acquired the lot about 18 months before the statute was passed; there is no evidence that he ever sought a building permit from the local authorities.
1013. I respectfully disagree and would save consideration of the merits for another day. Since, however, the Court has reached the merits, I shall do so as well.
In its analysis of the merits, the Court starts from the premise that this Court has adopted a "categorical rule that total regulatory takings must be compensated," ante, at 1026, and then sets itself to the task of identifying the exceptional cases in which a State may be relieved of this categorical obligation, ante, at 1027-1029. The test the Court announces is that the regulation must "do no more than duplicate the result that could have been achieved" under a State's nuisance law. Ante, at 1029. Under this test the categorical rule will apply unless the regulation merely makes explicit what was otherwise an implicit limitation on the owner's property rights.
In my opinion, the Court is doubly in error. The categorical rule the Court establishes is an unsound and unwise addition to the law and the Court's formulation of the exception to that rule is too rigid and too narrow.
tion [of value.] So the question depends upon the particular facts." Id., at 413.
Nor does the Court's new categorical rule find support in decisions following Mahon. Although in dicta we have sometimes recited that a law "effects a taking if [it] ... denies an owner economically viable use of his land," Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 260 (1980), our rulings have rejected such an absolute position. We have frequentlyand recently-held that, in some circumstances, a law that renders property valueless may nonetheless not constitute a taking. See, e. g., First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U. S. 304, 313 (1987); Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U. S. 590, 596 (1962); United States v. Caltex, 344 U. S. 149, 155 (1952); Miller v. Schoene, 276 U. S. 272 (1928); Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394, 405 (1915); Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 657 (1887); cf. Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co., 467 U. S. 986, 1011 (1984); Connolly v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 475 U. S. 211, 225 (1986). In short, as we stated in Keystone Bituminous Coal Assn. v. DeBenedictis, 480 U. S. 470, 490 (1987), "'Although a comparison of values before and after' a regulatory action 'is relevant, ... it is by no means conclusive.' "
2 This aspect of the Act was amended in 1990. See S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-290(B) (Supp. 1990).
lot were destroyed by a hurricane one day after the Act took effect, the owners would not be able to rebuild, nor would they be assured recovery. Under the Court's categorical approach, Lucas (who has lost the opportunity to build) recovers, while his neighbors (who have lost both the opportunity to build and their homes) do not recover. The arbitrariness of such a rule is palpable.
Moreover, because of the elastic nature of property rights, the Court's new rule will also prove unsound in practice. In response to the rule, courts may define "property" broadly and only rarely find regulations to effect total takings. This is the approach the Court itself adopts in its revisionist reading of venerable precedents. We are told that-notwithstanding the Court's findings to the contrary in each casethe brewery in Mugler, the brickyard in Hadacheck, and the gravel pit in Goldblatt all could be put to "other uses" and that, therefore, those cases did not involve total regulatory takings.3 Ante, at 1026, n. 13.
3 Of course, the same could easily be said in this case: Lucas may put his land to "other uses" -fishing or camping, for example-or may sell his land to his neighbors as a buffer. In either event, his land is far from "valueless."
This highlights a fundamental weakness in the Court's analysis: its failure to explain why only the impairment of "economically beneficial or productive use," ante, at 1015 (emphasis added), of property is relevant in takings analysis. I should think that a regulation arbitrarily prohibiting an owner from continuing to use her property for bird watching or sunbathing might constitute a taking under some circumstances; and, conversely, that such uses are of value to the owner. Yet the Court offers no basis for its assumption that the only uses of property cognizable under the Constitution are developmental uses.
allows only single-family homes would render the investor's property interest "valueless."4 In short, the categorical rule will likely have one of two effects: Either courts will alter the definition of the "denominator" in the takings "fraction," rendering the Court's categorical rule meaningless, or investors will manipulate the relevant property interests, giving the Court's rule sweeping effect. To my mind, neither of these results is desirable or appropriate, and both are distortions of our takings jurisprudence.
Finally, the Court's justification for its new categorical rule is remarkably thin. The Court mentions in passing three arguments in support of its rule; none is convincing. First, the Court suggests that "total deprivation of feasible use is, from the landowner's point of view, the equivalent of a physical appropriation." Ante, at 1017. This argument proves too much. From the "landowner's point of view," a regulation that diminishes a lot's value by 50% is as well "the equivalent" of the condemnation of half of the lot. Yet, it is well established that a 50% diminution in value does not by itself constitute a taking. See Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365, 384 (1926) (75% diminution in value). Thus, the landowner's perception of the regulation cannot justify the Court's new rule.
4 This unfortunate possibility is created by the Court's subtle revision of the "total regulatory takings" dicta. In past decisions, we have stated that a regulation effects a taking if it "denies an owner economically viable use of his land," Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 260 (1980) (emphasis added), indicating that this "total takings" test did not apply to other estates. Today, however, the Court suggests that a regulation may effect a total taking of any real property interest. See ante, at 10161017, n. 7.
greatly hinder important governmental functions-but this is true of any small class of regulations. The Court's suggestion only begs the question of why regulations of this particular class should always be found to effect takings.
Finally, the Court suggests that "regulations that leave the owner ... without economically beneficial ... use ... carry with them a heightened risk that private property is being pressed into some form of public service." Ibid. As discussed more fully below, see Part III, infra, I agree that the risks of such singling out are of central concern in takings law. However, such risks do not justify a per se rule for total regulatory takings. There is no necessary correlation between "singling out" and total takings: A regulation may single out a property owner without depriving him of all of his property, see, e. g., Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U. S. 825, 837 (1987); J. E. D. Associates, Inc. v. Atkinson, 121 N. H. 581, 432 A. 2d 12 (1981); and it may deprive him of all of his property without singling him out, see, e. g., Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 (1887); Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394 (1915). What matters in such cases is not the degree of diminution of value, but rather the specificity of the expropriating act. For this reason, the Court's third justification for its new rule also fails.
In short, the Court's new rule is unsupported by prior decisions, arbitrary and unsound in practice, and theoretically unjustified. In my opinion, a categorical rule as important as the one established by the Court today should be supported by more history or more reason than has yet been provided.
Like many bright-line rules, the categorical rule established in this case is only "categorical" for a page or two in the U. S. Reports. No sooner does the Court state that "total regulatory takings must be compensated," ante, at 1026, than it quickly establishes an exception to that rule.
"It is true, that, when the defendants ... erected their breweries, the laws of the State did not forbid the manufacture of intoxicating liquors. But the State did not thereby give any assurance, or come under an obligation, that its legislation upon that subject would remain unchanged. [T]he supervision of the public health and the public morals is a governmental power, 'continuing in its nature,' and 'to be dealt with as the special exigencies of the moment may require;' ... 'for this purpose, the largest legislative discretion is allowed, and the discretion cannot be parted with any more than the power itself.''' Id., at 669.
Under our reasoning in Mugler, a State's decision to prohibit or to regulate certain uses of property is not a compensable taking just because the particular uses were previously lawful. Under the Court's opinion today, however, if a State should decide to prohibit the manufacture of asbestos, cigarettes, or concealable firearms, for example, it must be prepared to pay for the adverse economic consequences of its decision. One must wonder if government will be able to "go on" effectively if it must risk compensation "for every such change in the general law." Mahon, 260 U. S., at 413.
"If accepted, that claim would represent a return to the era of Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905), when common-law rights were also found immune from revision by State or Federal Government. Such an approach would freeze the common law as it has been constructed by the courts, perhaps at its 19th-century state of development. It would allow no room for change in response to changes in circumstance. The Due Process Clause does not require such a result." PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U. S. 74, 93 (1980) (concurring opinion).
lands, see, e. g., 16 U. s. C. § 1451 et seq., shapes our evolving understandings of property rights.
5 Even measured in terms of efficiency, the Court's rule is unsound. The Court today effectively establishes a form of insurance against certain changes in land-use regulations. Like other forms of insurance, the Court's rule creates a "moral hazard" and inefficiencies: In the face of uncertainty about changes in the law, developers will overinvest, safe in the knowledge that if the law changes adversely, they will be entitled to compensation. See generally Farber, Economic Analysis and Just Compensation, 12 Int'l Rev. of Law & Econ. 125 (1992).
6 As the Court correctly notes, in regulatory takings, unlike physical takings, courts have a choice of remedies. See ante, at 1030, n. 17. They may "invalidat[e the] excessive regulation" or they may "allo[w] the regulation to stand and orde[r] the government to afford compensation for the permanent taking." First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U. S. 304, 335 (1987) (STEVENS, J., dissenting); see also id., at 319-321. In either event, however, the costs to the government are likely to be substantial and are therefore likely to impede the development of sound land-use policy.
Viewed more broadly, the Court's new rule and exception conflict with the very character of our takings jurisprudence. We have frequently and consistently recognized that the definition of a taking cannot be reduced to a "set formula" and that determining whether a regulation is a taking is "essentially [an] ad hoc, factual inquir[y]." Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 124 (1978) (quoting Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U. S., at 594). This is unavoidable, for the determination whether a law effects a taking is ultimately a matter of "fairness and justice," Armstrong v. United States, 364 U. S. 40, 49 (1960), and "necessarily requires a weighing of private and public interests," Agins, 447 U. S., at 261. The rigid rules fixed by the Court today clash with this enterprise: "fairness and justice" are often disserved by categorical rules.
It is well established that a takings case "entails inquiry into [several factors:] the character of the governmental action, its economic impact, and its interference with reasonable investment-backed expectations." Prune Yard, 447 U. S., at 83. The Court's analysis today focuses on the last two of these three factors: The categorical rule addresses a regulation's "economic impact," while the nuisance exception recognizes that ownership brings with it only certain "expectations." Neglected by the Court today is the first and, in some ways, the most important factor in takings analysis: the character of the regulatory action.
7This principle of generality is well rooted in our broader understandings of the Constitution as designed in part to control the "mischiefs of faction." See The Federalist No. 10, p. 43 (G. Wills ed. 1982) (J. Madison).
"[Our] decisions have consistently held that the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a 'valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).' United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252, 263, n. 3 (1982) (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment) .... In Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158 (1944), we held that a mother could be prosecuted under the child labor laws for using her children to dispense literature in the streets, her religious motivation notwithstanding. We found no constitutional infirmity in 'excluding [these children] from doing there what no other children may do.' Id., at 171. In Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599 (1961) (plurality opinion), we upheld Sunday-closing laws against the claim that they burdened the religious practices of persons whose religions compelled them to refrain from work on other days. In Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437,461 (1971), we sustained the military Selective Service System against the claim that it violated free exercise by conscripting persons who opposed a particular war on religious grounds."
If such a neutral law of general applicability may severely burden constitutionally protected interests in liberty, a comparable burden on property owners should not be considered unreasonably onerous.
Act, which simply transferred back to the surface owners certain rights that they had earlier sold to the coal companies, the Subsidence Act affected all surface owners-including the coal companies-equally. See Keystone, 480 U. S., at 486. Perhaps the most familiar application of this principle of generality arises in zoning cases. A diminution in value caused by a zoning regulation is far less likely to constitute a taking if it is part of a general and comprehensive land-use plan, see Euclid v. Amber Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365 (1926); conversely, "spot zoning" is far more likely to constitute a taking, see Penn Central, 438 U. S., at 132, and n. 28.
The presumption that a permanent physical occupation, no matter how slight, effects a taking is wholly consistent with this principle. A physical taking entails a certain amount of "singling out." 8 Consistent with this principle, physical occupations by third parties are more likely to effect takings than other physical occupations. Thus, a regulation requiring the installation of a junction box owned by a third party, Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U. S. 419 (1982), is more troubling than a regulation requiring the installation of sprinklers or smoke detectors; just as an order granting third parties access to a marina, Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U. S. 164 (1979), is more troubling than an order requiring the placement of safety buoys in the marina.
8 See Levrnore, Takings, Torts, and Special Interests, 77 Va. L. Rev. 1333, 1352-1354 (1991).
372 S. W. 2d 833, 842-843 (Mo. 1963). As one early court stated with regard to a waterfront regulation, "If such restraint were in fact imposed upon the estate of one proprietor only, out of several estates on the same line of shore, the objection would be much more formidable." Commonwealth v. Alger, 61 Mass. 53, 102 (1851).
9 See Zalkin, Shifting Sands and Shifting Doctrines: The Supreme Court's Changing Takings Doctrine and South Carolina's Coastal Zone Statute, 79 Calif. L. Rev. 205, 216-217, nn. 46-47 (1991) (collecting statutes).
10 This provision was amended in 1990. See S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39290(B) (Supp. 1990).
11 This provision was amended in 1990; authority for renourishment was shifted to local governments. See S. C. Code Ann. § 48-39-350(A) (Supp. 1990).
land alike.12 This generality indicates that the Act is not an effort to expropriate owners of undeveloped land.
Admittedly, the economic impact of this regulation is dramatic and petitioner's investment-backed expectations are substantial. Yet, if anything, the costs to and expectations of the owners of developed land are even greater: I doubt, however, that the cost to owners of developed land of renourishing the beach and allowing their seawalls to deteriorate effects a taking. The costs imposed on the owners of undeveloped land, such as petitioner, differ from these costs only in degree, not in kind.
12 In this regard, the Act more closely resembles the Subsidence Act in Keystone than the Kohler Act in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393 (1922), and more closely resembles the general zoning scheme in Euclid v. Amber Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365 (1926), than the specific landmark designation in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104 (1978).
13 Zalkin, 79 Calif. L. Rev., at 212-213.
Carolina Legislature persuade me that the Act did not effect a taking of petitioner's property.
I would dismiss the writ of certiorari in this case as having been granted improvidently. After briefing and argument it is abundantly clear that an unreviewable assumption on which this case comes to us is both questionable as a conclusion of Fifth Amendment law and sufficient to frustrate the Court's ability to render certain the legal premises on which its holding rests.
The petition for review was granted on the assumption that the State by regulation had deprived the owner of his entire economic interest in the subject property. Such was the state trial court's conclusion, which the State Supreme Court did not review. It is apparent now that in light of our prior cases, see, e. g., Keystone Bituminous Coal Assn. v. DeBenedictis, 480 U. S. 470, 493-502 (1987); Andrus v. Allard, 444 U. S. 51, 65-66 (1979); Penn Central Transportation Corp. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 130-131 (1978), the trial court's conclusion is highly questionable. While the respondent now wishes to contest the point, see Brief for Respondent 45-50, the Court is certainly right to refuse to take up the issue, which is not fairly included within the question presented, and has received only the most superficial and one-sided treatment before us.
nize. This alone is enough to show that there is little utility in attempting to deal with this case on the merits.
239 U. S. 394, 412 (1915) (prohibition on operation of brickyard did not prohibit extraction of clay from which bricks were produced). Indeed, it is difficult to imagine property that can be used only to create a nuisance, such that its sole economic value must presuppose the right to occupy it for such seriously noxious activity.
The upshot is that the issue of what constitutes a total deprivation is being addressed by indirection, and with uncertain results, in the Court's treatment of defenses to compensation claims. While the issue of what constitutes total deprivation deserves the Court's attention, as does the relationship between nuisance abatement and such total deprivation, the Court should confront these matters directly. Because it can neither do so in this case, nor skip over those preliminary issues and deal independently with defenses to the Court's categorical compensation rule, the Court should dismiss the instant writ and await an opportunity to face the total deprivation question squarely. Under these circumstances, I believe it proper for me to vote to dismiss the writ, despite the Court's contrary preference. See, e. g., Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U. S. 740, 755 (1984) (Burger, C. J.); United States v. Shannon, 342 U. S. 288, 294 (1952) (Frankfurter, J.).

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 48
 § 48

§48
 § 48
 § 48
 § 48
 §48
 § 48
 v. 
 § 48
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 §410
 § 460
 § 113
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 48
 v. 
 v. 
 § 48
 § 48
 § 48
 § 48
 § 48
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 §827
 § 48
 § 48
 § 48
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.

 v. 
 v. 
 § 1451
 § 1456
 § 48
 §48
 § 48
 § 48
 §48
 §48
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.

 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 2
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.

 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 48
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 1451
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 48
 § 48
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.