Back in December, the Supreme Court held oral argument on Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Though the case raises several issues, the primary question is:
The Florida Supreme Court invoked “nonexistent rules of state substantive law” to reverse 100 years of uniform holdings that littoral rights are constitutionally protected. In doing so, did the Florida Court’s decision cause a “judicial taking” proscribed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution?
(See the summary at SCOTUSWiki for more.) “Judicial taking” is in quotes for a reason: the claim has never been recognized by any Federal court.
The founder of our firm, James E. Beasley, Sr., used to say “law is made on a lawyer’s desk.”
Let me explain.
Brown v. Board of Education was not a simple change of heart by the Supreme Court. It was the culmination of a century of litigation challenging the treatment of African Americans in education.
Even the reasoning of Brown v. Board of Education — striking down Plessy v. Ferguson by holding “separate but equal” was inherently unequal — was born not in the Supreme Court’s chambers in 1954, but on Charles Hamilton Houston’s desk in the 1930s. Whole books have been written on the strategy and the years of internal debates within the NAACP as to how to best frame the issue for a favorable Supreme Court opinion.
Courts do not, and cannot, change the law on their own. Federal courts in particular need a “case or controversy” to act at all.
To make new law, Federal and state courts need lawyers who can envision how the law should change before even filing suit, lawyers who can carefully guide the case — from the factual record to the preservation of arguments — through the trial courts and to the Supreme Court with the issue properly framed for judicial disposition.
All of that happens on a lawyer’s desk.
Back to Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. How do you get a court to recognize a claim that has never been recognized before?
First, you argue that precedent has implicitly supported the claim all along:
This Court’s prior cases provide a sound doctrinal basis for adopting a judicial takings doctrine. Specifically, this Court should adopt the judicial takings test articulated by Justice Stewart in Hughes that a state judicial decision effects a taking under the U.S. Constitution when it “constitutes a sudden change in state law, unpredictable in terms of relevant precedents.” See Hughes v. Washington, 389 U.S. 290, 296 (1967) (Stewart, J., concurring).
This Court has expressly held that the Equal Protection and the Due Process Clauses apply to state judiciaries. The Takings Clause should apply to state courts as well. Without such a doctrine, a state is free to clothe one of its agents with the power to violate the U.S. Constitution. Ex Parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 346 (1879).
Merits Brief, pp. 17–18.
Second, you argue why recognizing the claim is a good idea anyway:
First, nothing in the text of the Fifth Amendment suggests that it applies to one branch of government and not others. … Second, the Takings Clause is founded upon basic notions of fairness and justice. … Third, this Court’s takings jurisprudence provides no basis for distinguishing between action of a state’s court and those of its legislative or executive branches. … Fourth, if state courts are free to reorder property rights insulated from the Takings Clause’s requirement to pay compensation, then the legislative and executive branches will no longer change the law themselves (and pay for it); rather they will encourage the judiciary to make the change so that the state does not have to pay compensation. … Fifth, the stability of property rights is the foundation for a healthy economy.
Id., pp. 44–47.
Finally, you address why recognizing the claim will not ‘open up the floodgates’ to further litigation:
Despite suggestions to the contrary, a judicial takings doctrine based on Justice Stewart’s test is workable and will not result in a flood of litigation. Lower courts have had little trouble recognizing a sudden and dramatic change in property law. … Moreover, the proposed ad-hoc test can be applied easily just like other ad-hoc tests this Court has developed.
Id., p. 48. Whoever is opposing the claim will inevitably argue that your claim will “open the floodgates,” so it is essential that you use some form of the “flood” metaphor. (Don’t believe me? Here’s all 101 times in the last two years the “floodgates” metaphor has been used in briefs filed with the Supreme Court.)
Will it work? It’s hard to tell. Justice Stevens, a Florida property-holder, recused himself, creating the possibility of a 4-4 split, which would leave the Florida Supreme Court’s opinion intact and would not create new law.
Moreover, the Supreme Court is typically hesitant to second-guess a state Supreme Court’s interpretations of its own laws (unless, of course, the case is Bush v. Gore). Property law, in turn, is purely a creation of state common law, unmoored from even the canons of statutory construction, much less Federal constitutional principles.
If new law is made by this case, it will have been made not in the chambers of the Supreme Court, but rather on the desk of the many lawyers who developed the theory of “judicial taking” over the years and the lawyers filed Stop the Beach Renourishment’s petition back in 2004.