Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council - Significance, Impact, Coastal Zones And The Law Of The Sea

court petitioner oyez supreme

Petitioner

David H. Lucas

Respondent

South Carolina Coastal Council

Petitioner's Claim

The South Carolina State Beachfront Management Act deprived the petitioner of profitable use of his property by prohibiting construction of new dwellings on his parcels. Thus, it must compensate the petitioner.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner

A. Camden Lewis

Chief Lawyer for Respondent

C. C. Harness III

Justices for the Court

Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia (writing for the Court), Clarence Thomas, Byron R. White

Justices Dissenting

Harry A. Blackmun, David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

29 June 1992

Decision

The Court ruled that the petitioner suffered a "taking;" his property was rendered "valueless" by South Carolina statute and he was thus entitled to "just compensation."

Related Cases

Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 (1887).
Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (1922).
Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255 (1980).
First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304 (1987).

Sources

Jentleson, Bruce W. and Thomas G. Paterson, eds. Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council - Significance

Although the South Carolina Supreme Court decided that state regulations "were designed to prevent serious public harm," the U.S. Supreme Court held that when a property owner suffered a "taking," there were no exceptions from common rule (the Takings Clause and the Just Compensation Clause). Furthermore, when the state of South Carolina amended their original statute by including provisions that …

Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council - Impact

Dissenting opinion notwithstanding, the provisions of the Takings and Just Compensation Clauses of the Constitution's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were upheld by the Supreme Court as immutable rules which ensured that property could not be taken without fair market compensation. In this instance, Lucas's property was not physically taken but because it was rendered valueless, Lucas was entitled…

Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council - Coastal Zones And The Law Of The Sea

The United States has long been a jealous guardian of its coastal boundaries. Its inaccessibility to foreign invaders has helped keep it safe from outside military forces since the War of 1812. Long before that war, in 1793, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson formulated a principle that became a legal convention long before it was ever memorialized by statute: that the American "territorial sea" …

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User Comments

about 4 years ago

Two additional resources relating to the case are available.

1. William Fischel (1995) has a photographic essay illustrating the issue. See http://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/lucasessay.html

2. Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials (2007) have a follow-up case study of a nearby golf course and condominiums threatened by erosion. See http://www.astswmo.org/documents/CottonHarness2_000.pdf