Green Light for Beach Renourishment, Red Light for Judicial Takings

Abstract

The Supreme Court’s resolution of Stop the Beach Renourishment has a frightening near-miss quality to it. Four justices led by Justice Scalia would have embraced, for the first time in the nation’s history, the petitioner’s radical judicial takings theory, and wreaked other far-reaching damage to established takings doctrine. Fortunately, the remaining four justices (Justice Stevens recused himself) deflected this missile, leaving prior doctrine intact.