## Facts

- R.W. Docks & Slips, a partnership, owned riparian property with roughly 1,100 feet of Lake Superior frontage near Bayfield, Wisconsin, and developed a private marina in phases beginning in 1969.
- With regulatory approvals, it built a breakwater and harbor and ultimately constructed marina and upland facilities including docks totaling 201 slips, a seawall, lagoon and quay structures, and related commercial/recreational improvements.
- The breakwater calmed shoreline waters and contributed to formation of a small emergent weed bed along the shore.
- R.W. Docks sought to complete a final expansion phase by adding 71 slips (for a total of 272), which required a dredging permit under Wisconsin law.
- The Department of Natural Resources denied the dredging permit on the ground that dredging would damage or destroy the emergent weed bed.
- R.W. Docks alleged the marina operated at a deficit and that the inability to build the additional slips made the project economically unworkable, asserting the denial was an uncompensated regulatory taking.

## Issues

1. Whether denial of the dredging permit constituted a categorical regulatory taking by depriving the owner of all economically beneficial use of its property.
2. Whether, under ad hoc regulatory takings analysis, the permit denial so interfered with reasonable investment-backed expectations that compensation was required.
3. For takings analysis, whether the relevant property should be defined as only the unapproved 71-slip expansion area or the marina property and development as a whole.
4. Whether the permit denial unlawfully infringed riparian rights in a manner inconsistent with the State’s authority under the public trust doctrine.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for the State and DNR, dismissing the takings claim.
- No categorical taking occurred because the permit denial did not eliminate all economically beneficial use of the property when the property is considered as a whole.
- No compensable taking occurred under ad hoc analysis because the action, at most, limited a riparian right of access that is subordinate to the public trust, and it did not severely interfere with reasonable investment-backed expectations.
- The relevant unit of property for takings purposes was the marina property and associated facilities as a whole, not the discrete, unbuilt 71-slip segment.

## Legal Principles

- A categorical regulatory taking requires a showing that government action deprives the owner of all economically beneficial use of the relevant property.
- Takings analysis generally evaluates the “parcel as a whole” and does not segment property into discrete phases or components to create a total-loss claim.
- Riparian rights of reasonable access and related water-dependent uses are qualified rights subject to the State’s public trust obligations in navigable waters.
- Environmental protection measures consistent with public trust responsibilities may restrict additional development without compensation when substantial existing use and value remain.
- Reduced profitability or blocked expansion plans, without near-total deprivation of use or value, ordinarily do not establish a compensable regulatory taking under ad hoc analysis.

## Conclusion

The court held that denying a dredging permit needed to add 71 marina slips was not a compensable taking because the marina retained substantial existing economic use and value when viewed as a whole, and because limits on riparian expansion to protect navigable waters fall within the State’s public trust authority.


R.W. Docks & Slips v. State, 628 N.W.2d 781 (Wis. 2001)