1. The image of David Lucas that emerges from majority Justice Scalia’s description is strikingly different from the one that Justice Blackmun creates in his dissent. What are the two contrasting stories in this case? Do you think that when Lucas bought the land at issue here, in 1986, he had reason to know that by building on it he would soon be the owner of a “pig in a parlor”?
2. According to the majority, what two types of regulatory action automatically trigger compensation as takings, without a court needing to examine the circumstances in a case-specific way? Why does the dissent object to this approach?
3. Included in the bundle of rights that go with land ownership are those of occupation, use, and sale. When something is done to affect those rights—making them less valuable to the owner—the common law allows a suit for nuisance. A nuisance is an activity or condition that creates an unreasonable interference with a person’s use and enjoyment of property. So, for example, a nuisance is created when a service station allows gasoline to leak from its holding tanks onto adjourning residential property19 or when a farmer’s seasonal irrigation system spews waste water onto his neighbors’ farmlands.20 What role does nuisance play in the majority opinion in this case? In the other Lucas opinions?