The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a 2011 decision by five Florida justices, which held that a state or local government's declining to approve a permit unless the applicant agreed to unreasonably onerous conditions did not constitute a taking of his property.
The high court's landmark ruling, besides strengthening protections of Americans' property rights nationwide, upholds a state trial court decision in 2006 that awarded $376,000 to the estate of Orange County landowner Coy Koontz. In 1994, Koontz was denied a permit for a developing project on his property, and told that approval would come only if he agreed to hand over a large chunk of his land to the St. Johns River Water Management District, or to pay for improvements on District-owned wetlands located several miles away.
Koontz died before the trial court ruled in his favor, and the Florida Supreme Court overturned the award on the grounds that a denial of a permit could not possibly constitute a taking of property under Florida or federal law.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed.
The principles that undergird our [previous] decisions ... do not change depending on whether the government approves a permit on the condition that the applicant turn over property or denies a permit because the applicant refuses to do so, wrote Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the court's opinion on behalf of himself, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia. [R]egardless of whether the government ultimately succeeds in pressuring someone into forfeiting a constitutional right, the unconstitutional conditions doctrine forbids burdening the Constitutions enumerated rights by coercively withholding benefits from those who exercise them.
Abigail MacIver, director of policy and external affairs for the Florida chapter of Americans for Prosperity, told Sunshine State News Tuesday's ruling is a vindication of her organization's previous criticism of Florida's activist Supreme Court justices.
The decision in the Koontz case is a huge win for property rights in Florida and around the nation. This decision is proof positive that the Florida Supreme Court misstepped in deciding to rule in favor of government regulation over individual liberties and the U.S. Supreme Court has corrected that, she said. It's a shame that Coy Koontz Senior isn't here to see this day and the legacy he established when he started this fight against overreaching government regulation almost 20 years ago. The Koontz family took on the government to protect the rights of all property owners and we should be thanking them for this victory.
But it might not be the end of the road for Koontz's family.
Florida Supreme Court Justices Ricky Polston and Charles Canady had joined in the result of the 2011 ruling, but not in the majority's legal reasoning; instead, Polston and Canady said that under Florida law Koontz should have exhausted all the administrative remedies provided by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection before taking his case to court. In Tuesday's ruling, Alito says that procedural question will now be one for the Florida courts to decide if the state chooses not to drop its nearly 20-year long case against Koontz and his estate.
Reach Eric Giunta at egiunta@sunshinestatenews.com or at 954-235-9116.
