Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection
United States Supreme Court
560 U.S. 702 (2010)
Florida (defendant) permitted a beach-restoration project adding 75 feet of dry sand seaward of the mean high-water line, the traditional boundary between private and state-owned submerged land; beachfront property owners (SBR, plaintiffs) sued, arguing the project constituted an uncompensated taking by cutting off their state-law right to future natural accretions and their right to have their property directly touch the ocean. Florida's own supreme court, reviewing the state's use of the avulsion doctrine (which vests newly exposed land in the state rather than the adjacent owner), ruled against the property owners, and the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Whether (1) to constitute a taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment, a property owner must show that he has a vested and future right superior to that of the state and in contravention to state law, and (2) if an avulsion adds dry land on the seaward side of littoral property, that land belongs to the state, even if the state causes the avulsion.