Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Florida's Supreme Court violated the Constitution's regulatory takings clause when it upheld a plan to create a state-owned public beach between private waterfront land and the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2004, Florida property owners filed a lawsuit to halt the planned restoration of beaches in Walton County.

Under the state's Beach and Shore Preservation Act, counties and cities can restore beaches eroded by hurricanes and storms by adding sand beyond a state-designated erosion control line -- separating private property from the state's property. After doing so, the new sand becomes public beach because the projects are funded with state and federal dollars.

A Florida district court ruled in 2006 that the state's restoration effort constituted an uncompensated taking, depriving property owners of their right to maintain contact with the water and their "right to accretion," which is the gradual accumulation of land by natural forces.

Last September, the Florida Supreme Court reversed the lower court order.

"Without the beach renourishment provided for under the act, the public would lose vital economic and natural resources," the court held. "As for the upland owners, the beach renourishment protects their property from future storm damage and erosion while preserving their littoral rights to access, use, and view. Consequently, just as with the common law, the act facially achieves a reasonable balance of interests and rights to uniquely valuable and volatile property interests."

This will be the first taking case to come before Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor.

Question presented: Whether the state's legislation to restore storm-eroded beaches along the ocean or lakeshores, modifying the private property boundary line, constitutes a judicial taking or violates the due process clause?