ELR Citation: ELR 21612
No(s). 93-5180 (Fed. Cir. Jun 10, 1994)

The court holds that the applicable six-year statute of limitations does not bar landowners' takings claims arising from their loss of shoreline property resulting from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (Corps') construction and operation of a deep-water harbor where the situation had not stabilized sufficiently to allow the landowners' takings claims to accrue six years before. The Corps' operation of a deep-water harbor near Cape Canaveral, Florida, interrupts the southerly natural littoral flow of sand that historically replenished 41 miles of beaches, and consequently, caused the landowners' shoreline property to recede. Applying the stabilization doctrine that the U.S. Supreme Court established in United States v. Dickinson, 331 U.S. 745 (1947), for physical takings of a continual nature, the court finds that the slow erosion of landowners' shorelines over 30 years delayed detection of the full extent of the destruction. Also, the landowners did not know when or if their land would be permanently destroyed because the Corps repeatedly failed over that same 30-year period to meet its promises to restore the landowners' shorelines. The court holds that the uncertainty that the slow erosion and unfulfilled promises created prevented the situation from stabilizing, and thereby delayed accrual of their takings claims.

Counsel for Plaintiffs
Gordon H. Harris
Gray, Harris, Robinson, Kirschenbaum & Peeples
Glass Bank Bldg.
505 N. Orlando Ave., 4th Fl., Cocoa Beach FL 32932
(407) 783-2218

Counsel for Defendant
Stuart M. Benjamin
Environmental and Natural Resources Division
U.S. Department of Justice, Washington DC 20530
(202) 514-2000

Before MICHEL, PLAGER, and RADER, Circuit Judges.