HGS Will Defend Private Property Rights before the United States Supreme Court on December 2, 2009

HGS attorneys Richard Brightman and Kent Safriet will represent Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc., before the United States Supreme Court in the Supreme Court’s only land-use related case this term. Oral argument is scheduled for 10 am on December 2, 2009.

The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review a September 2008 Florida Supreme Court opinion that eliminated private property rights. HGS lawyers argue that the Florida Supreme Court opinion changed 100 years of Florida law defining littoral rights – which are compensable property rights – to avoid a taking, and in so doing, caused a taking of affected beachfront property owners’ property rights. HGS has represented the beachfront property owners from the filing of the initial administrative petition challenging the State’s actions through the appeals to the Florida First District Court of Appeal and Florida Supreme Court, and now will present the case to the United States Supreme Court.

The Florida Supreme Court opinion concluded that the State’s establishment of an Erosion Control Line ("ECL") did not cause a taking of littoral property rights. Pursuant to the Beach and Shore Preservation Act, the State can establish an ECL as the new property boundary for a beachfront property owner, and the change in the property’s boundary divests the property of constitutionally protected common law littoral rights associated with ownership of property to the mean high water mark.

The briefs are available at Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection.