Clarence Thomas

“ No one seriously doubts that the land use regulations at issue rendered petitioners’ land unsusceptible of any economically beneficial use. This was true at the inception of the moratorium, and it remains true today. ”

“ County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304, 318 (1987) , which held that temporary and permanent takings “are not different in kind” when a landowner is deprived of all beneficial use of his land. I had thought that First English put to rest the notion that the “relevant denominator” is land’s infinite life. Consequently, a regulation effecting a total deprivation of the use of a so-called “temporal slice” of property is compensable under the Takings Clause unless background principles of state property law prevent it from being deemed a taking ”