California property owner challenges Coastal Commission’s power to levy crippling fines

Carlsbad, California; November 21, 2025: A California property owner filed a lawsuit today challenging the California Coastal Commission’s power to levy crippling fines without having to first prove its allegations in court. John Levy argues that the Coastal Commission violated his constitutional right to due process by imposing $2.4 million in fines without providing him a trial by jury or other procedural safeguards. 

“Americans have a constitutional right to significant due process protections when the government seeks to impose punitive financial penalties on them or their property,” said Jeremy Talcott, attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation. “By failing to provide procedural safeguards during its investigations or before imposing fines, the Coastal Commission is violating the Fourteenth Amendment rights of Californians like John Levy.” 

John Levy owns a waterfront home in Carlsbad, California. In 2025, the California Coastal Commission slapped Mr. Levy with multi-million-dollar fines for alleged public access violations and over disputed structures on his property, including a gate that the City approved but the Commission wants to tear down. Because the Coastal Commission prosecutes and adjudicates its investigations in-house, Mr. Levy argues that the agency violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights during its investigation by failing to provide him with a jury trial before imposing $2.4 million in fines. 

On November 19, Mr. Levy filed a lawsuit to challenge the Coastal Commission’s actions against him and to defend Californians’ Fourteenth Amendment rights. 

Pacific Legal Foundation represents Levy free of charge. The case is John Levy v. California Coastal Commission.