Cite as: 535 U. S. 302 (2002)
Thomas, J., dissenting
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Scalia joins, dissenting.
I join The Chief Justice's dissent. I write separately to address the majority's conclusion that the temporary moratorium at issue here was not a taking because it was not a "taking of 'the parcel as a whole.' " Ante, at 332. While this questionable rule* has been applied to various alleged regulatory takings, it was, in my view, rejected in the context of temporal deprivations of property by First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U. S. 304, 318 (1987), which held that temporary and permanent takings "are not different in kind" when a landowner is deprived of all beneficial use of his land. I had thought that First English put to rest the notion that the "relevant denominator" is land's infinite life. Consequently, a regulation effecting a total deprivation of the use of a so-called "temporal slice" of property is compensable under the Takings Clause unless background principles of state property law prevent it from being deemed a taking; "total deprivation of use is, from the land-owner's point of view, the equivalent of a physical appropriation." Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U. S. 1003, 1017 (1992).
A taking is exactly what occurred in this case. No one seriously doubts that the land-use regulations at issue rendered petitioners' land unsusceptible of any economically beneficial use. This was true at the inception of the mora*The majority's decision to embrace the "parcel as a whole" doctrine as settled is puzzling. See, e. g., Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, 533 U. S. 606, 631 (2001) (noting that the Court has "at times expressed discomfort with the logic of [the parcel as a whole] rule"); Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U. S. 1003, 1017, n. 7 (1992) (recognizing that "uncertainty regarding the composition of the denominator in [the Court's] 'deprivation' fraction has produced inconsistent pronouncements by the Court," and that the relevant calculus is a "difficult question").
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