The Ninth Circuit has issued a new opinion in Northern California River Watch v. City of Healdsburg (No. 04-15442, Aug. 6, 2007).
The case involves the post-Rapanos standard for how “navigable waters of the United States” is defined in the Clean Water Act, and what wetlands are covered under the Act’s jurisdiction. The court…
A New York federal court has ruled in favor of a property owner thata municipality wrongfully exercised eminent domain and denied thelandowner procedural due process by not providing proper notice of hisright to contest the taking. Brody v. Village of Port Chester, No. 00 Civ. 7481 (HB) (SDNY, July 18, 2007).
Under the eminent…
Professor Ilya Somin has posted a link to his commentary on the Wilkie v. Robbins decision by the US Supreme Court. Worth a read. My thoughts on the Wilkie decision here.
This post has nothing whatsoever to do directly with land use law or property rights, but there’s an interesting article on the San Francisco Chronicle’s web site that is too good to resist. “Zen and the art of lawyering” reports on Bay Area lawyers who combat job-related stress by meditation.
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The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports an interesting AP story from Washington state, “A good fence makes … trouble,” about property owners whose fence on their own property has been threatened by an obscure federal agency:
Herbert and Shirley-Ann Leu were thinking landscaping, not politics,when they built an 85-foot-long concrete wall in their back yard.…
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin has posted a story on the recent Hawaii Supreme Court decision in Brescia v. North Shore Ohana (No. 27211, July 12, 2007), entitled “Rocker’s plans for Kauai home blocked.” According to the story, it turns out the decision in Brescia also impacts a neighboring property belonging to the lead singer of the…
An article about the aftermath of Kelo by two fellows from the Institute for Justice points out recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau that shows that seems to bear out the Kelo dissenters’ warning that the power of eminent domain is disproportionately laid on the minorities, lower-income, and the less-educated:
According to the data, …
More on the Supreme Court of Hawaii opinion in Brescia v. North Shore Ohana (No. 27211, July 12, 2007). The Court took up no less than seven points on appeal, but the most interesting to me was the analysis of the estoppel issue.
The case involved Kauai property within the coastal “Special Management Area.” The…
