Report: Beachfront Takings Case May Be Sotomayor's First Test

From The Destin Log, the hometown newspaper from the location of the U.S. Supreme Court case on judicial takings and beachfront land (Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009)), comes the report "Destin may be Sotomayor's first test: Analysts think new justice would vote against private property owners in beach restoration case."

A new face on the Supreme Court may help settle an old but simmering issue that has divided Destin for years.

With the city about to become ground zero for beach restoration battles nationwide, The Log contacted legal experts and lobbyist groups to ask where Sonia Sotomayor would stand on the case and whether her nomination could swing the decision.

Robert Thomas, a land use and appellate lawyer based in Honolulu, Hawaii, said when the Destin beach restoration case goes before the high court sometime this winter, it will present an opportunity to find out Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy — especially after a largely tight-lipped performance at her Senate nomination hearings last month.

"This will be one of the first cases that she hears," he said. "All eyes will be on her, not just on the result."

Sotomayor, who was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday, has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York since President Bill Clinton elevated her to the post in 1998.

And while Sotomayor is "a stickler for fair process," that court hasn’t been "terribly pro-property owner," Thomas said.

Thomas said that at its core, the Destin case, filed by Stop the Beach Renourishment Inc., is about judicial taking.

The group claimed that Walton County’s 2006 beach restoration project deprived the owners of their property rights, and Thomas said the Florida Supreme Court’s 2008 decision to uphold that project "did not follow its own 100-year precedent and radically shifted Florida law and didn’t tell anyone."

"A lot of objections to judges is that they shouldn’t legislate from the bench," he said. "This case may give us some opportunity to find out what her thoughts are on that, because if courts aren’t legislating and aren’t making law, then government has to pay compensation to these owners."

The complete article is posted here. More about the case on our resource page, and on soon-to-be-Justice Sotomayor's track record on property issues here.