642
Opinion of Stevens, J.
that he has no standing to claim that the promulgation of the regulations constituted a taking of any part of the property that he subsequently acquired.
His lack of standing does not depend, as the Court seems to assume, on whether or not petitioner "is deemed to have notice of an earlier-enacted restriction," ante, at 626. If those early regulations changed the character of the owner's title to the property, thereby diminishing its value, petitioner acquired only the net value that remained after that diminishment occurred. Of course, if, as respondents contend, see n. 3, supra, even the prior owner never had any right to fill wetlands, there never was a basis for the alleged takings claim in the first place. But accepting petitioner's theory of the case, he has no standing to complain that preacquisition events may have reduced the value of the property that he acquired. If the regulations are invalid, either because improper procedures were followed when they were adopted, or because they have somehow gone "too far," Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 415 (1922), petitioner may seek to enjoin their enforcement, but he has no right to recover compensation for the value of property taken from someone else. A new owner may maintain an ejectment action against a trespasser who has lodged himself in the owner's orchard but surely could not recover damages for fruit a trespasser spirited from the orchard before he acquired the property.
The Court's holding in Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U. S. 825 (1987), is fully consistent with this analysis. In that case the taking occurred when the state agency compelled the petitioners to provide an easement of public access to the beach as a condition for a development permit. That event—a compelled transfer of an interest in property—occurred after the petitioners had become the owner of the property and unquestionably diminished the
was therefore not owed any compensation for the deprivation of that right").
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