Item B: Ordinance Concerning Goal 5 Natural Resources Study

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2892 112 SUPREME COURT REPORTER 505 U.S. 1013 mW' procedure by which he may regain-for the future, at least-beneficial use of his land goes only to the prudential "ripeness" of Lucas's challenge, and for the reasons dis. cussed we do not think it prudent to apply that prudential requirement here. See Espo- sito v. South Carolina Coastal Council. 939 F.2d 165, 168 (CA4 1991), cart. denied, 505 U.S. 1219, 112 S.Ct. 3027, 120 L.Ed.2d 898 (l992).t We leave for decision on remand, of course, the questions left< unaddressed by the South ...1J1l14Carolina Supreme Court as a con. sequence of its categorical disposition.5 III A Prior to Justice Holmes's exposition in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Malum. 260 U.S. 393, 43 S.Ct. 158, 67 L.Ed. 322 (1922), it was case mean that. we are without Article III juris- diction, as Justice BIACKMUN apparently be- lieves. See post, at 2907, and n. 5. Given the South Carolina Supreme Court's dismissive fore- closure of further pleading and adjudication with respect to the pre-1990 component of Lucas's takings claim. it is appropriate for us to address that component as if the case were here on the pleadings alone. Lucas properly alleged injury in fact in his complaint. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 154 (complaint); id., at 156 (asking "dam- ages for the temporary taking of his property" from the date of the 1988 Act's passage to "such time as this matter is finally resolved"). No more can reasonably be demanded. Cf. First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of GlendJlle v. County of Los 4ngeles, 482 U.S. 304, 312-313, 107 S.Ct. 2378, 2384, 96 L.Ed.2d 250 (1987). Justice BIACKMUN finds it "baftling," post, at 2908, n. 5, that we grant standing here, whereas '1ust a few days ago, in Lujan v. De[entlers of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555. 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992)," we denied standing. He sees in that strong evidence to support his re- peated imputations that the Court "presses" to take this case, post. at 2904. is "eager to decide" it, post, at 2909. and is unwilling to "be denied," post, at 2907. He has a point: The decisions are indeed very close in time, yet one grants standing and the other denies it. The distinction, howev- er. rests in law rather than chronology. Lujan, since it involved the establishment of injury in fact at the summary judgment stage, required specific facts to be adduced by sworn.testimony; had the same challenge to a generalized allega- tion of injury in fact been made at the pleading stage, it would have been unsuccessful. I I generally thought that the Takings Clause reached only a "direct appropriation" of property, Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457, 551, 20 L.Ed. 287 (1871), or the functional equivalent of a "practical ouster of [the own- er's] possession," Transportation Co. v. Chi- cago, 99 U.S. 635, 642, 25 L.Ed. 336 (1879). See also Gibson v. United States, 166 U.S. 269,275-276,17 S.Ct. 578, 580,41 L.Ed. 996 (1897). Justice Holmes recognized in Ma- hon, however, that if the protection against physical appropriations of private property was to be meaningfully enforced, the govern- ment's power to redefine the range of inter- ests included in the ownership of property was necessarily constrained by constitutional limits. 260 U.S., at 414-415, 43 s.Ct., at 160. If, instead, the uses of private property w~e,\). subject to unbridled,uncompensated qualifi- ~i; ..:\ 4. In that case, the Court of Appeals for the' ,. Fourth Circuit reached the merits of a takings challenge to the 1988 Beachfront Management Act identical to the one Lucas brings here even though the Act was amended, and the special pennit procedure established, while the case was under submission. The court observed: "The enactment of the 1990 Act during the pen- dency of this appeal, with its provisions for spe- cial permits and other. changes that may affect the plaintiffs. does not relieve us of the need to address the plaintiffs' claims under the provi- sions of the 1988 Act: Even if the amended Act cured all of the plaintiffs' concerns, the amend- ments would not foreclose the possibility that a taking had occurred during the years when the 1988 Act was in effect," Esposito v. Sou1h Car- olina Coastal Council. 939 F.2d 165, 168 (1991). 5. Justice BIACKMUN states that our "intense interest in Lucas' plight ... would have heen more prudently expressed by vacating the judg- ment below and remanding for further consider- ation in light of the 1990 amendments" to the Beachfront Management Act. Post, at 2909, n. 7. That is a strange suggestion, given that the South Carolina Supreme Court rendered its categorical disposition in this case after the Act had been amended, and after it had been invited to consid- er the effect of those amendments on Lucas's case. We have no reason to believe that the justices of the South Carolina Supreme Court arc any more desirous of using a narrower ground now than they were then; and. neither "pru- dence" nor any other principle of judicial re- straint requires that we remand to find out whether they have changed their mind.