There was a lot of handwringing over Kelo v New London last year, the property rights/eminent domain case decided by the Supreme Court last year. I won't revisit it.
I've been more interested in the case out of Michigan known as Glass v Goeckel. Goeckel is a landowner in Alcona County, Michigan, who owns property on the shore of Lake Huron (which I think is the prettiest lake). Glass lives across the highway from the lakefront properties. Glass, like many Michigan residents, likes to go out and walk along the shore of the lake. The state's public trust doctrine says that the waters and submerged lands of the Great Lakes are held by the state (Michigan has the most coastline of any state other than Alaska).
The issue was the definition of "submerged lands." The Goeckels argued they had rights to all territory down to the actual waterline. Glass said the public trust was somewhere landward of the waterline. An appeals court found for the Goeckels and based their decision on an earlier case called Hilt v. Weber. It's worth noting that Michigan was unique in defining the public trust as starting at the waterline; in most states the public trust includes land below the ordinary high water mark (which is the highest water level reached under other-than-extraordinary conditions such as floods and surge tides).
Glass appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court. Several interested groups filed amicus briefs supporting the Goeckels, all referencing Hilt v. Weber, which the Michigan Supreme Court had handed down some years earlier.
To the surprise, certainly of me but it seems of most people following the case, the Supreme Court found for Glass, and decided that the public trust in fact included all lands below the ordinary high water line. This brought Michigan in line with the rest of the country but went counter to many years of Michigan law. Still, a Supreme Court can do that; that's why they're called Supreme.
The Goeckels of course appealed this to the Supreme Court. I had assumed the case would be granted cert. Turns out I was wrong.
The Supreme Court today denied cert in the case (now called Goeckel v. Glass), meaning the Michigan SC's ruling stands. Glass can walk on the beach below the ordinary high water line, which means she doesn't have to get her feet wet. Neither do any other of Michigan's 10 million citizens.
You don't have to agree with the eminent domain issues in Kelo. But this case was simpler. One of my pet peeves is lack of public access to shorelines; I'm thrilled that the Michigan court has made that access a matter of law, and that the US Supreme Court has let that law stand.
2 comments:
Hey did you see the article on the NYTimes about all the new legislation coming up limiting eminent domain in most states? I'm glad to see states taking a cue from the SCOTUS and changing their laws.
Yeah, and I'm also glad to see someone else who sees things your way--the Court didn't change the law. The Court provided states with an opportunity to tighten their own laws. States are supposed to do that sort of thing.
I am a bit concerned about the degree of backlash in some places--some banks have announced they won't offer loans to anyone developing a piece of property through the use of eminent domain. Okay, as far as it goes--but people need to remember that eminent domain is not necessarily a bad thing. Highways get widened because of eminent domain. Hospitals get expanded. Schools get built. Eminent domain is an important power and not one that should be universally deplored the way it has been lately.
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