Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council

Facts

In 1986 Lucas paid $975,000 for two residential lots on the Isle of Palms, a barrier island in Charleston County, South Carolina. He intended to build single-family homes, as the owners of the immediately adjacent parcels had already done, and he commissioned architectural drawings. The lots sat about 300 feet from the beach and were not a "critical area" under South Carolina's 1977 coastal act, so when Lucas bought them he did not need a permit from the South Carolina Coastal Council before building. In 1988 the legislature enacted the Beachfront Management Act, which directed the Council to draw a baseline along the coast. In action not challenged in the case, the Council fixed the baseline landward of Lucas's parcels. The Act flatly prohibited construction of occupable improvements seaward of a line 20 feet landward of the baseline, with no exceptions. A state trial court found that the ban deprived Lucas of any reasonable economic use of the lots and rendered them valueless. After the suit was underway, the Act was amended to allow "special permits" for some construction seaward of the baseline, but Lucas never applied for one.

Issues

1. Does a land-use regulation that deprives land of all economically beneficial or productive use effect a taking that requires just compensation?
2. Can the State defend such a regulation without paying compensation simply because it prevents serious public harm, or must the prohibited uses already be barred by background principles of the State's property and nuisance law?

Holding

The Beachfront Management Act's construction ban, which the trial court found rendered Lucas's lots valueless, effected a compensable taking unless South Carolina could show on remand that background principles of its nuisance and property law already prohibited the uses Lucas intended. A legislature's recitation of a harm-prevention purpose cannot by itself defeat compensation for a total deprivation.