On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith dismissed a lawsuit filed by the advocacy law firm Pacific Legal Foundation asking for an injunction against Rhode Island’s new shoreline access law and a declaration that it’s an illegal taking of private property by the government without just compensation.
The Pacific Legal Foundation is representing a group made up of private beachfront property owners and “interest holders” called the Rhode Island Association of Coastal Taxpayers, or RIACT.
Judge Smith agreed with the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office that RIACT lacks standing in the case. By suing Attorney General Peter Neronha and heads of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council and Department of Environmental Management in federal court, Smith said the Association of Coastal Taxpayers “seeks the wrong relief from the wrong defendants before the wrong court.”
The judge says the harm was done when the Rhode Island General Assembly passed the law and the governor signed it, but the plaintiff can’t sue either, and the state itself is protected by its sovereign immunity.
“Because RIACT cannot tie the named Defendants to the constitutional harm allegedly inflicted by the Act or its cure, the case is not properly in federal court,” Smith wrote in his decision.
In a statement issued by his office Wednesday, Neronha said he applauds the judge’s decision and that he remains “grateful that the General Assembly codified Rhode Islanders’ constitutional rights to shoreline access into state law.”
Neronha added that his office is “committed to protecting those rights against any legal challenge.”
The Pacific Legal Foundation says it’s considering what to do next on behalf of RIACT.
“We will continue to explore options to vindicate the Constitutional rights of RIACT’s members,” said Jeremy Talcott, an attorney with the foundation. “The question here is: Who can be sued and how? So the ruling doesn’t constitute any sort of an opinion on the merits of the takings claim.”
Rhode Island’s new shoreline access law is intended to clarify public rights and end disputes between the public and beachfront property owners. It says the public can be on the beach up to ten feet landward of the seaweed line.
Alex Nunes can be reached at anunes@thepublicsradio.org
