RI - Oceanfront property owners’ takings case against state officials dismissed
Opponents of law expanding public beach access lack standing to sue
A lawsuit brought by a group of oceanfront property owners challenging the new shoreline access law as an unconstitutional taking was barred for lack of standing, a U.S. District Court judge determined.
Prior to the enactment earlier this year of the shoreline access law, H. 5174, private beachfront property extended from the high tide line inland. But under the measure, private ownership rights now begin 10 feet inland from the “seaweed line,” enabling the public to access land lying between the old boundary and the new one.
Blocked by 11th Amendment from suing the General Assembly and the governor for passing and signing the law, the Rhode Island Association of Coastal Taxpayers, an advocacy group formed by affected property owners, instead named a trio of state officials as defendants in an action that asserted the law amounted to an unconstitutional taking.
The named defendants argued that RIACT lacked standing to sue them, since the group could not trace any claimed injury to the named defendants as required by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1992 Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife decision.
U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith agreed, rejecting RIACT’s argument that it reasonably feared prosecution or citation by the named defendants should RIACT members seek to prevent the public from encroaching on their properties.
“Dressing up the claim as a ‘fear of prosecution’ is like putting lipstick on a pig,” Smith wrote, granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss. “Standing cannot rest solely on speculation … and the Court cannot grant RIACT’s members a license to exclude would-be trespassers.”
The nine-page decision is Rhode Island Association of Coastal Taxpayers v. Neronha, et al., Lawyers Weekly No. 52-079-23. The full text of the ruling can be found here.
Attorney General Peter F. Neronha, one of the named defendants whose office represented the other two defendants, applauded Smith’s decision.
“I remain grateful that the General Assembly codified Rhode Islanders’ constitutional rights to shoreline access into state law, and my office remains committed to protecting those rights against any legal challenge,” Neronha said in a prepared statement.
