Cite as: 533 U. S. 606 (2001)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
value of petitioners' property. Even though they had notice when they bought the property that such a taking might occur, they never contended that any action taken by the State before their purchase gave rise to any right to compensation. The matter of standing to assert a claim for just compensation is determined by the impact of the event that is alleged to have amounted to a taking rather than the sort of notice that a purchaser may or may not have received when the property was transferred. Petitioners in Nollan owned the property at the time of the triggering event. Therefore, they and they alone could claim a right to compensation for the injury.6 Their successors in interest, like petitioner in this case, have no standing to bring such a claim.
III
At oral argument, petitioner contended that the taking in question occurred in 1986, when the Council denied his final application to fill the land. Tr. of Oral Arg. 16. Though this theory, to the extent that it was embraced within petitioner's actual complaint, complicates the issue, it does not alter my conclusion that the prohibition on filling the wetlands does not take from Palazzolo any property right he ever possessed.
The title Palazzolo took by operation of law in 1978 was limited by the regulations then in place to the extent that such regulations represented a valid exercise of the police power. For the reasons expressed above, I think the regulations barred petitioner from filling the wetlands on his property. At the very least, however, they established a rule that such lands could not be filled unless the Council
6 In cases such as Nollan—in which landowners have notice of a regulation when they purchase a piece of property but the regulatory event constituting the taking does not occur until after they take title to the property—I would treat the owners' notice as relevant to the evaluation of whether the regulation goes "too far," but not necessarily dispositive. See ante, at 632-636 (O'Connor, J., concurring).
643
Page: Index Previous 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007