Case Summary
Beachfront property along California’s gorgeous Pacific coast must be among the most coveted acreage in the world. But Hollywood stars, tech moguls, and golf course developers aren’t alone in casting covetous eyes on this prize. California being California, this also may be the most heavily regulated swath of land in the world — a beautiful but bruising battleground between property owners, regulators, governments and preservationists, all vying for dominance and control.
One leading player in these power struggles is the California Coastal Commission, an unaccountable board of political appointees, created in 1972, which doesn’t own one square inch of coastal land but ruthlessly wields excessive, arguably unconstitutional power over every individual who does actually own property there.
Warren and Henny Lent learned first-hand about the Commission’s vast powers after they bought a beach-front home on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu in 2002, inaugurating a string of disputes over beach access that eventually had the couple facing an astonishing $4.185 million in Commission-imposed fines. Those fines were and are imposed by the Commission without anything reassembling due process. The Lents and other targets of the commission are afforded:
- no notice of those who may testify at the hearing
- no right to subpoena
- no right to cross-examine witnesses
- no right to demand that testimony be under oath
- no right to exclude hearsay or speculative evidence
- no right to present rebuttal
At issue in this case is whether an unelected state administrative body of all-powerful appointees has the legal authority to impose such draconian penalties, minus any reasonable semblance of due process, or whether such outrageous fines are unconstitutional under both the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment, as imposed on California and other states by the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
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Case History
In 2002, Warren and Henny Lent bought a beach-front house on Pacific Coast Highway (or PCH) in Malibu, California. Since the early 1980s, when the house was built, the side yard had a narrow stairway which provided emergency, secondary egress to and from the beach. The stairway led down to a wood landing, which covered a county-owned storm-water pipe that runs along the side yard, perpendicular to PPC.
Naturally, like most every house, the side yard also had a gate barring entry from the street. The gate not only ensured the owners their privacy, but was necessary to protect public safety, ensuring that passersby did not fall onto the wood landing, which was a dangerous six-to-seven feet down from the street. Before buying the property, the Lents performed their due diligence and uncovered no issues with the side yard. They believed they were within their right as property owners to keep the gate.
In 2007, the Lents received a notice of violation from the staff of the California Coastal Commission contending that they had violated the California Coastal Act by not removing these side-alley structures. Ultimately, Commission staff followed up on that notice by initiating an administrative penalty order, seeking a fine of $950,000.
At the December 2016 penalty hearing, the Lents and their attorney were allowed to speak and to present evidence. But they were afforded no right to subpoena witnesses or documentary evidence, no right to notice of those who would testify against them at the hearing, no right to demand testimony under oath, no right to confront or cross-examine witnesses, no right to exclude hearsay or speculative evidence, and no right to present rebuttal testimony or evidence.
At the hearing’s conclusion, the Commission ultimately settled upon a penalty of $4.185 million against the Lents, more than four times the staff recommendation. One Commissioner at the time explained that quadrupling the staff recommendation was necessary because “we don’t want to be in a position . . . rewarding . . . applicants that have been fighting us.” The California Court of Appeals upheld the Commission’s imperious and punitive actions, including the nearly $4.2 million fin on the Lents, even while noting that no other administrative agency in the nation that has the ability to issue crushing financial penalties while guaranteeing the defendant only the barest of procedure safeguards. Pacific Legal Foundation filed its Petition for a Writ of Certiorari on behalf of the Lents in the Supreme Court of the United States, asking the court to hear the case. Mountain States Legal Foundation and the Cato Institute filed their joint Amicus brief on behalf of the Lents in the Supreme Court of the United States on November 17, 2021.
Unfortunately, the United States Supreme Court denied a writ of certiorari on February 22, 2022. MSLF continues to look for ways to make a positive impact in favor of property rights for all Americans.
