AMONG JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS’S LANDMARK LEGACIES: TAHOE-SIERRA PRESERVATION COUNCIL, INC. V. TAHOE REGIONAL PLANNING AGENCY. Refocusing the Doctrinal Lens of Takings Law

Among Justice John Paul Stevens’s landmark legacies is Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302 (2002). In Tahoe, Justice Stevens’s majority opinion made the Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992), decision effectively immaterial because Justice Stevens treated partial, temporal regulatory takings the same as partial, spatial regulatory takings. And, by doing so, Justice Stevens refocused the doctrinal lens of takings law. This study surveys the impact Tahoe has had on regulatory takings doctrine since 2002, and concludes that after Tahoe, Lucas became immaterial and all regulatory takings cases now require a Penn Central Transportation Company v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104 (1978), analysis, as a result. Moreover, because regulatory takings doctrine highlights a deeply rooted problem with takings clause analyses, this study goes further and suggests that takings clause analysis throughout its history improperly focuses on whether or not a governmental action is a “taking”, when what we really need to determine is what is the Constitutionally-required “just compensation” for the governmental actio