January 2013

Did you know that as a Hawaii landowner you own all unmarked or unbranded cattle, horses, mules, donkeys, sheep, goats, and swine, over twelve monthsof age, which may be running wild on your land? Yeah, we knew that.

We also knew that you are going to love any opinion that starts out with “[t]he dispute

Here’s the Federal Circuit’s Order for additional briefing in the Arkansas Game & Fish Comm’n v. United States case. As you know, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier reversed the Federal Circuit’s conclusion that government-induced flooding could not be a taking because it was not “permanent, ” and remanded the case to the Federal Circuit for

The speed of the internet: we were all set to summarize our thoughts on the South Carolina Supreme Court’s opinion in Dunes West Golf Club, LLC v. Town of Mount Pleasant, No. 2011-194211 (Jan. 9, 2013), a case involving equal protection, substantive due process, and takings claims, when Dean Patty Salkin at the Law

Here’s the inevitable reaction to U. Hawaii law Professor David Callies’ recently-published law review article (and follow-up interview) about the stunning success rates certain parties enjoy in the Hawaii Supreme Court. In that article, the good professor labeled the record of the 1993-2010 Hawaii Supreme Court on property issues “appalling,” so it should come

We’re sensing a trend here: takings cases where the property owners/plaintiffs are dead by the time their cases get considered by the Supreme Court. The week before last, the Court heard arguments in Koontz v. St Johns River Water Mgmt Dist., No. 11-1447 (cert. granted Oct. 5, 2012), a case where the original landowner

The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals, in a unanimous panel opinion authored by Judge Foley, held that a “zoning verification” by the Director of the City and County’s Department of Planning and Permitting is not a “decision of the Director” which a property owner must administratively appeal to the Honolulu Zoning Board of Appeals. Hoku

43_ELR_10189_Page_01Thanks to the folks at the Environmental Law Institute, who have allowed us to reprint an article from a recent Environmental Law Reporter which brings some clarity to the subject of the “denominator” issue in regulatory takings.

In Temporary Takings, Tahoe Sierra, and the Denominator Problem, William W. Wade, Ph.D., a resource

Didn’t the California Supreme Court already deal the final blow to California’s redevelopment agencies when it held that the state legislature could eliminate redevelopment agencies without violating the California Constitution because what the lege giveth, the lege may taketh away? In California Redevelopment Association v. Matosantos, No. S194861 (Dec. 29, 2011) the court upheld

This morning at the ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Conference, we made a presentation (along with Cornell lawprof Robert Hockett and moderator Jim Burling) on the issue of the use of eminent domain to seize “underwater” mortgages.

Late breaking: it must have been something we said – the Joint Powers Authority (the agency formed