reasonable investment-backed expectations

Eastern Enterprises was organized as a Massachusetts business trust in 1929 under the name Eastern Gas and Fuel Associates. Until 1965, Eastern conducted extensive coal mining operations centered in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. As a signatory to each National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreement executed between 1947 and 1964, Eastern made contributions of over $60 million to the 1947 and 1950 Welfare and Retirement Funds. In 1963, Eastern decided to transfer its coal-related operations to a subsidiary, Eastern Associated Coal Corp. The transfer was completed by the end of 1965. It was described in Eastern's federal income tax return as an agreement by EACC to assume all of Eastern's liabilities arising out of coal mining and marketing operations in exchange for Eastern's receipt of EACC's stock. Eastern retained its stock interest in EACC through a subsidiary corporation, Coal Properties Corp., until 1987. It received dividends of more than $100 million from EACC during that period. In 1987, Eastern sold its interest in Coal Properties Corp. to Peabody Holding Company, Inc. Following enactment of the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992, the Commissioner of Social Security assigned to Eastern the obligation for Combined Fund premiums respecting over 1,000 retired miners who had worked for the company before 1966. The assignment rested on Eastern's status as the pre-1978 signatory operator for whom the miners had worked for the longest period of time. Eastern's premium for a 12-month period exceeded $5 million. Eastern responded by suing the Commissioner, as well as the Combined Fund and its trustees, in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Eastern asserted that the Coal Act, either on its face or as applied, violates substantive due process and constitutes a taking of its property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment for respondents on all claims. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

The Nollans own a beachfront lot in Ventura County, California. A concrete seawall approximately eight feet high separates the beach portion of their property from the rest of the lot. The historic mean high tide line determines the lot's oceanside boundary. The Nollans originally leased their property with an option to buy, and the building on the lot was a small bungalow totaling 504 square feet. The Nollans' option to purchase was conditioned on their promise to demolish the bungalow and replace it. On February 25, 1982, they submitted a permit application to the California Coastal Commission proposing to demolish the existing structure and replace it with a three-bedroom house. The Commission informed them that the permit would be granted subject to the condition that they allow the public an easement to pass across a portion of their property bounded by the mean high tide line and their seawall. On June 3, 1982, the Nollans filed a petition for writ of administrative mandamus in the Ventura County Superior Court to invalidate the access condition. The court remanded the case to the Commission for a full evidentiary hearing. After the hearing, the Commission reaffirmed the condition. The Superior Court ruled in favor of the Nollans on statutory grounds and directed that the permit condition be struck. While the Commission's appeal to the California Court of Appeal was pending, the Nollans tore down the bungalow, built the new house, and bought the property. The Court of Appeal reversed the Superior Court. The Nollans appealed to this Court, raising only the constitutional question.

In 1986, petitioner David H. Lucas purchased two residential lots on the Isle of Palms in Charleston County, South Carolina, for $975,000. He intended to construct single-family homes on the parcels, which at the time were zoned for such use and required no building permit for development. No portion of the lots qualified as a critical area under then-existing coastal zone legislation. Subsequently, in 1988, the South Carolina Legislature enacted the Beachfront Management Act. The legislation established a baseline and prohibited construction of occupable improvements seaward of a line drawn 20 feet landward of that baseline, directly affecting Lucas's parcels by barring any permanent habitable structures. Lucas filed an action in the Court of Common Pleas alleging that the Act's restrictions effected a taking of his property without just compensation. Following a bench trial, the court determined that the prohibition rendered the lots valueless and ordered the state to pay just compensation in the amount of $1,232,387.50. The Supreme Court of South Carolina reversed the trial court's judgment. It accepted the legislature's findings that new construction threatened public resources and concluded that a regulation designed to prevent serious public harm could not constitute a taking. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the South Carolina Supreme Court's decision.

In 1997, the State of Hawaii had a highly concentrated wholesale oil market due to its small size and isolation over 1,600 miles from the mainland, with only two refineries and six gasoline wholesalers operating in the state. Chevron U.S.A. Inc. was the largest refiner and marketer, controlling 60 percent of the in-state gasoline market and 30 percent of the wholesale market on Oahu. Gasoline was sold at retail through approximately 300 service stations, about half leased by oil companies to independent lessee-dealers. Chevron operated 64 such lessee-dealer stations under arrangements where it leased land, constructed stations, and leased them to dealers while setting wholesale prices and requiring supply contracts. In June 1997, the Hawaii Legislature enacted Act 257, which capped the rent oil companies could charge lessee-dealers at 15 percent of gross profits from gasoline sales plus 15 percent of other product sales, and imposed other restrictions on station ownership. Thirty days after enactment, Chevron filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii against the Governor and Attorney General, challenging the rent cap. The parties stipulated that the cap would reduce aggregate rent on 11 of Chevron's stations by about $207,000 per year but allow increases on the remaining 53, potentially raising overall rental income by nearly $1.1 million annually, and that Chevron had not recovered station maintenance costs through rent alone over the past 20 years. The District Court granted summary judgment to Chevron. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit vacated the judgment and remanded the case. After a one-day bench trial featuring competing expert economists, the District Court entered judgment for Chevron. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2004.

In the early 1960s, Kaiser Aetna's predecessor leased a 6,000-acre area including Kuapa Pond on the island of Oahu from the Bishop Estate for subdivision development known as Hawaii Kai. Kuapa Pond was a shallow lagoon covering 523 acres that extended approximately two miles inland from Maunalua Bay, was separated from the Pacific Ocean by a barrier beach, and had been used historically as a private fishpond under Hawaiian law following the 1848 Great Mahele land division. Kaiser Aetna dredged the pond to an average channel depth of six feet, constructed an eight-foot-deep channel through the barrier beach to connect it to the bay and ocean, erected retaining walls, built bridges, and eliminated the original sluice gates to create the Hawaii Kai Marina for pleasure boats. The Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit for the dredging and filling operations that expressly provided the marina would be a private facility not open to the general public. At the time of trial, a marina-style community of approximately 22,000 persons surrounded the pond, including 1,500 waterfront lot lessees who paid fees for maintenance and security, and Kaiser Aetna controlled access while generally prohibiting commercial use except for limited promotional vessels. In 1972 a dispute arose when the Corps asserted regulatory authority under the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act and claimed the pond had become navigable waters of the United States open to the public. The United States filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii seeking a declaration of public access rights and an injunction requiring Kaiser Aetna to allow such access. The District Court found that Kuapa Pond had not been navigable prior to the improvements, held that the pond was subject to Corps regulation but that the Government lacked authority to open it to the public without compensation, and denied the requested injunction. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that the marina was subject to the federal navigational servitude and that no compensation was required. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether the Government's assertion of a public right of access amounted to a taking of private property.