Hinckley Allen claimed an important win for private property rights in Rhode Island last week.
In Roth v. Rhode Island, Hinckley Allen challenged the constitutionality of newly enacted state legislation that significantly diminished the rights of property owners along the Rhode Island shoreline. For centuries, Rhode Island law recognized that the boundary between private property rights and public trust rights was the mean high tide line (MHT). However, in 2023 the General Assembly passed a law that authorized the public to access and use previously private property as much as 70 feet above the MHT line. The Roth’s, owners of beachfront property in Westerly RI, retained Hinckley Allen to defend their right to control their property and to challenge the constitutionality of the new law.
Last Friday, the Rhode Island Superior Court issued a decision in the case finding that the law violates the Rhode Island Constitution’s Separation of Powers provision and constitutes an unconstitutional taking of private property.
“Judge Taft-Carter’s ruling affirms our belief that the General Assembly reached too far when it attempted to move the boundary line. Rhode Island’s shoreline property rights are enshrined in the State’s constitution and confirmed by the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Ibbison. The legislature’s attempt to move that private property boundary landward violates both the separation of powers and takings provisions of the Rhode Island Constitution,” said Hinckley Allen Partner and Litigation Chair Jerry Petros.
A national firm dropped into Rhode Island to file a parallel suit focused only on collecting damages for property taken without compensation. Going further to protect private property owners seeking to maintain control over their own property, Hinckley Allen challenged the validity of the new law, arguing that moving the private property boundary landward by as much as 70 feet is flatly unconstitutional. Over forty years ago, the Supreme Court in State v. Ibbison confirmed that Section 17 of Article 1 of the State Constitution establishes “mean high tide” as the boundary between private and public lands, a scientifically calculable boundary. The Roth v. Rhode Island motion papers argue poignantly that the Rhode Island General Assembly does not have the authority to redefine that boundary established by the Constitution and interpreted by the State’s highest court. Hinckley Allen’s ongoing success in the Roth case will go a long way to preserve rights of many thousands of Rhode Island property owners to control access to and the use of their property.
The Roth case will now move forward on damages for the unlawful taking of land without just compensation and establish a road map for the many owners harmed by the law.
