560 U.S. 702 (2010) (U.S. Supreme Court)
Stop the Beach Renourishment sits at the intersection of property and constitutional law, presenting the Supreme Court with the question whether a court, by redefining state property law, can itself commit a taking under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The case arose from Florida's effort to combat coastal erosion by adding sand to beaches and fixing a new shoreline boundary, which had the effect of interposing state-owned dry sand between upland owners and the water and of eliminating the owners' prospects for future accretions.
Can a state court decision that allegedly redefines established property rights constitute a judicial taking under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and, if so, did the Florida Supreme Court's decision upholding Florida's beach renourishment program effect such a taking of littoral rights?
No majority of the Court adopted a comprehensive judicial takings doctrine. A four-Justice plurality stated that the Takings Clause constrains all branches: a court commits a taking when it declares that what was once an established private property right no longer exists. Two Justices suggested that due process, rather than the Takings Clause, is the proper check on arbitrary or unpredictable judicial changes to property law. Applying settled principles of Florida property law, all Justices agreed there was no taking here: under Florida's avulsion doctrine, sudden changes to the shoreline—including state-created fill—do not move the boundary between private uplands and state-owned submerged lands, and the State may fix an Erosion Control Line and create public beach seaward of that line while preserving reasonable access for upland owners.
Affirmed. The Florida Supreme Court's decision did not effect a taking. Whether or not a judicial takings theory is valid, no established property right was eliminated because, under Florida law, the State's creation of new dry land seaward of the pre-project mean high-water line is treated as an avulsive event that does not shift private boundaries, and the Act preserves the core incidents of littoral ownership such as reasonable access.
The case leaves the existence and contours of a judicial takings doctrine unresolved while signaling that abrupt judicial redefinitions of property may face constitutional limits. Its practical teaching is twofold: first, background principles of state property law define the scope of protected property for takings purposes; second, littoral rights—especially accretion versus avulsion—are contingent and may yield to the State's public trust and coastal management powers. For students, Stop the Beach is a key bridge between property and constitutional law, a study in fractured Supreme Court reasoning, and a reminder to ground takings analysis in state-law definitions of property and in established common-law doctrines.