High Court to Rule in Coast Access Case

The U.S. Supreme Court, entering a case with a potentially far-reaching impact for California’s coastline, agreed Monday to decide whether the state can force a property owner to let the public use the beach near his home.

Conservative legal groups say the case, brought by a Ventura County couple, poses a clear instance in which “private property (was) taken for public use without just compensation” in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

But attorneys for California said they were surprised that the court entered this fight, noting that the “attack in this case is on principles of constitutional law uniformly applied in California for more than 35 years.”

Since being created by the voters in 1972, the California Coastal Commission has sought “to provide maximum public access to and along the coast” by requiring owners of beachfront property who want to build or make changes on their land to make a “dedication” to the state. Typically, this means opening up a pathway to the beach or permitting the public’s use of the beach in front of the home.

The case began in 1982 when James and Marilyn Nollan, owners of a small beach-front lot in Ventura, sought a permit to tear down a rotting bungalow and build a three-story home. The Coastal Commission said it would grant the permit only if the Nollans would agree to “a deed restriction acknowledging the right of the public to pass and repass across the subject properties.” The Nollans refused and took the issue to a state court.

A Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the Nollans, concluding that “the commission may constitutionally require a grant of public access only when the facts . . . demonstrate that a proposed development will place a burden on public access to the coast.”

However, in 1985, a state appeals court reversed that decision. The Nollans’ proposed home would not block the public from the beach, the court concluded, though such a development could be seen as “one more brick in the wall separating the people of California from the state’s tidelands.”

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative group from Sacramento that supports “free-enterprise” suits, took the case to the Supreme Court.

“The California courts have created a handy fiction which makes it possible for the state to acquire private property without paying for it,” the foundation said in its appeal on behalf of the Nollans. On Monday, the justices said they would hear the case (Nollan vs. California Coastal Commission, 86-133). Oral arguments will probably take place in the spring, and a decision is expected by July.

The case arises as conservative scholars have been urging the high court to breathe new life into those clauses of the Constitution that protect the rights of private property owners. The 14th Amendment says that states may not “deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law” but, in the conservative view, the courts since the New Deal era have vigorously upheld the rights to life and liberty, but not property.

Attorneys for California pointed out Monday that the justices in recent years have received appeals similar to the Nollans but rejected them. Although the justices do not disclose how they decide which cases to hear, the elevation of William H. Rehnquist to chief justice and the addition of conservative Associate Justice Antonin Scalia may have led the court to focus on an issue that it may have otherwise ignored.

Anthony Summers, a deputy state attorney general, said the potential impact of an adverse ruling is not clear. The high court could rule narrowly that the state must show how a development project harms the coastal area, or it could rule more broadly that the state has no right to open up private property without fully compensating the owners.

In other cases, the court:

- Turned down an appeal from an anti-nuclear group contending that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should have required more earthquake planning before it licensed the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant (San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace vs. NRC, 86-90).

- Agreed to decide whether a deputy constable in Harris County, Tex., was justifiably fired after she told a co-worker that she favored the assassination of President Reagan. The comment, which was made on the day Reagan was shot in 1981, led to her dismissal. But a federal appeals court ruled that her right to free speech outweighed the constable’s interest in maintaining employees who agreed with his views on enforcing the law (Rankin vs. McPherson, 85-2068).

- Let stand a $300,000 judgment against a Los Angeles-based military contractor that grew out of a 1978 accident in which a soldier was killed.