The state of Indiana wanted to expand beach property available to the public along the shoreline of Lake Michigan. Much to its irritation, the beach property was already owed by many other people, as natural extensions of their homes. Indiana could have used its power of eminent domain to pay for this property. Instead, the state attempted to take the beach property without just compensation by abusing the common-law doctrine of “public trust.”
In Gunderson v. Indiana, Cato now joins the National Association of Reversionary Property Owners and two other organizations on an amicus brief supporting the property owners’ request that the Supreme Court review this practice.
The “public trust” mechanism for Indiana’s machinations was once used by kings to control public waterways. In ye olden days, kings would assume authority over waterways abutting private property to ensure that navigation and fishing could continue at a relatively uniform pace. The Indiana bureaucracy and courts reformulated the rule to extend the “trust” upwards from any actual water to the “high water mark” on the sand. This meant that even if a house had a private section of beach behind it, if the water had at some time risen upward, the property was now forfeit to the government.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/taking-any-other-name-still-smells-rotten
No comments:
Post a Comment