Beachfront property owners seeking to restrict public access to Lake Michigan beaches met a significant roadblock Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition to hear the case.
Pavlock, Randall, et al. v. Holcomb, Gov. of IN, et al. was denied certiorari in an order list released Monday by the court.
The case sought to challenge a 2018 decision, Gunderson v. State, in which the Indiana Supreme Court ruled the shoreline — until the natural high water mark — belongs to the State of Indiana for the benefit of residents. When Indiana was created as a state, one of the rights that came with admission to the Union was the state ownership of the beds of navigable waters within its borders, including the exposed shores between the ordinary high and low water marks on Lake Michigan. The state’s duty to hold the shoreline in “public trust” prevents private landowners along the lake from building walls or other barriers that prevent people from walking along the shoreline, the court ruled. The U.S. Supreme Court had refused to hear an appeal of that case as well.
The nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation filed the revived lawsuit in December 2019, on behalf of Randall and Kimberley Pavlock, and Raymond Cahnman — who own property near Porter Beach, in the U.S. District Court in Hammond. The plaintiffs argued that the Gunderson ruling took away their right to limit it to friends and family without getting any compensation from Indiana, the lawsuit stated. A May ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago stated that the property owners lacked standing to challenge the 2018 court case.
Meredith Colias-Pete and Amy Lavalley contributed to this report.
