Cite as: 533 U. S. 606 (2001)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
by the State to prove, intimate or even suggest a theoretical possibility of any use for this property—never mind a beneficial use. Not once did the State claim that there is, in fact, some use available for the Palazzolo parcel."); Brief of Appellant in No. 98-0333, pp. 5, 7, 9-10 (hereinafter Brief of Appellant) (restating, verbatim, assertions of Post Trial Memorandum quoted above).
Responding to Palazzolo's Lucas claim, the State urged as a sufficient defense this now uncontested point: CRMC "would [have been] happy to have [Palazzolo] situate a home" on the uplands, "thus allowing [him] to realize 200,000 dollars." State's Post-Trial Memorandum in No. 88-0297 (Super. Ct., R. I.), p. 81; see also Brief of Appellees in No. 98-0333A, p. 25 (hereinafter Brief of Appellees) (Palazzolo "never even applied for the realistic alternative of using the entire parcel as a single unitary home-site"). The State did present some evidence at trial that more than one lot could be developed. See infra, at 653-654. And, in a supplemental post-trial memorandum addressing a then new Rhode Island Supreme Court decision, the State briefly urged that Palazzolo's claims would fail even under Penn Central. See ante, at 624. The evidence of additional uses and the post-trial argument directed to Penn Central, however, were underdeveloped and unnecessary, for Palazzolo himself, in his pleadings and at trial, pressed only a Lucas-based claim that he had been denied all economically viable use of his property. Once the State demonstrated that an "economically beneficial" development was genuinely plausible, Lucas, 505 U. S., at 1015, the State had established the analogy to MacDonald: The record now showed "valuable use might still be made of the land." 477 U. S., at 352, n. 8; see Brief of Appellees 24-25 (relying on MacDonald). The prospect of real development shown by the State warranted a ripeness dismissal of Palazzolo's complaint.
Addressing the State's Lucas defense in Lucas terms, Palazzolo insisted that his land had "no use . . . as a result of
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