{"id":8433,"date":"2012-04-09T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T13:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=8433"},"modified":"2012-04-09T08:41:44","modified_gmt":"2012-04-09T13:41:44","slug":"a-war-of-words-over-supreme-court-beach-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/09\/a-war-of-words-over-supreme-court-beach-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"War of Words over Supreme Court Beach Ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Smiley N. Pool-Pool\/Getty Images<\/p>

Damaged beach front homes are seen on Galveston Island after the passing of Hurricane Ike September 13, 2008 in Galveston, Texas.<\/p><\/div>\n

A recent ruling<\/a> by the Texas Supreme Court wasn’t very well-received by the General Land Office (GLO).\u00a0In a 5\u20133 opinion, the Court ruled that the GLO couldn’t force a beachfront homeowner, Carol Severance, to move her house after a Hurricane eroded the public beach in front of it. After the hurricane, that beach was gone, and was now essentially under her house.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems that the Open Beaches Act \u2014 at least for Galveston\u2019s West End \u2014 is dead, thanks to the Supreme Court,\u201d Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said after the ruling was announced. \u201cThis is truly a sad day.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a new response from the legal team behind the landowner begs to differ. The lead attorney for the defendant, David Breemer, said in a recent statement that\u00a0“the decision does not\u00a0‘kill’\u00a0the Open Beaches Act; it enforces it. What it kills is a rolling easement theory that cannot be found anywhere in that law,\u00a0a theory made up by state officials to avoid complying with provisions of the Act that say easements go to the vegetation line only when proven to exist by public use.”<\/p>\n

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