Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council

David Lucas (plaintiff) paid $975,000 in 1986 for two beachfront residential lots on South Carolina's Isle of Palms intending to build single-family homes, but South Carolina's 1988 Beachfront Management Act barred any permanent habitable structures on the lots; Lucas sued the South Carolina Coastal Council (defendant), and the trial court found the Act rendered his property completely valueless, constituting a taking requiring just compensation, but the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed, and the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.