Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council held that the government must provide compensation if a regulation deprives the owner of all "economically viable use" of his property. Lucas was argued on March 2, 1992 and Justice Scalia handed down the majority opinion on June 29, 1992. Here is a colloquy from that argument:
JUSTICE BLACKMUN: We're throwing around the term no economic viability of this property. . . . Viable is a good medical term, it isn't a legal term, but the lawyers have taken it over and the judges too. What do you mean by economic viability? . . .
MR LEWIS: So I think when you go down and you take a piece of property from uses down to no uses and from $1 million down to $0, you have a taking under our Constitution regardless of what–
JUSTICE BLACKMUN: That's hardly the medical definition of an old-time term of being viable.
Viability was apparently on Justice Blackmun's mind in Lucas. With good reason.
