Rhode Island judge clears path for shoreline access lawsuits

(The Center Square) — A Rhode Island judge says a law expanding public access along the state's coastline amounts to unconstitutional taking of private property without compensation.

The decision by Superior Court Associate Justice Sarah Taft-Carter was included in a ruling rejecting a motion from Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha to dismiss a pair of lawsuits against the state challenging the year-old law, which will allow the litigation to proceed.

A lawsuit filed a year ago by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of coastal property owners claims the law violates the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by authorizing a public easement that trespasses on their property without paying them for their losses.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say the new law “deprives them of their right to exclude non-owners from private beachfront property" and asked the court to block the state from enforcing requirements.

The law, approved in June 2023, moved the boundary of the public beach inland to 10 feet inland of the so-called 'seaweed' line along the entire state shoreline. Previously, the 'mean high tide' line served as the landward boundary of the public beach area along the state's coastline.

David Breemer, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, said Rhode Island lawmakers brushed aside a "cornerstone" of constitutional protections for private landowners and "illegally grabbed a 10-to-20-foot-wide ribbon of private land, granted its use by the public, and didn’t pay for it."

"The law doesn’t limit what the public can do on the strip of private coastal land taken by the new law’s expanded public beach area," he said in a statement. "Coastal landowners are stuck paying taxes on property now enjoyed by countless strangers who may be able to enter, occupy, and use their private shoreland however and whenever they wish."

Breemer said the plaintiffs, Stilts LLC, own a small house on the beach and have a constitutional right to keep the property "unless and until the government pays the fair market value of that coastal land."

"And because the government failed this critical duty, it can’t relocate public beach area, not even by making a new law," he said.

In a statement, the AG's office said, "respectfully disagree(s) with the Superior Court’s decision to deny the State’s motion for summary judgment in two cases regarding recent shoreline access legislation."

"The Attorney General will continue to rigorously defend Rhode Islanders’ access to the shoreline and the litigation team is currently evaluating all options for moving forward," the AG's office said. "As this is pending litigation, the Office offers no further comment."