April 2013

Earlier today, the Supreme Court considered whether to grant review in City of Tombstone v. United States, No. 12-1069 (cert. petition filed Feb. 27, 2013).

The City of Tombstone‘s cert petition asks whether the city “is likely to succeed on the merits of the claim that the Forest Service violated the Tenth Amendment…

Check out the opinion of the Indiana Supreme Court in Utility Center, Inc. v. City of Fort Wayne, No. 90S04-1208-PL-450 (Apr. 11, 2013. The issue is what the term “rehear … de novo” means in Indiana’s eminent domain code relating to condemnations by cities and towns, which provides for such review by trial courts…

Yesterday, we posted our thoughts on a recent article in Hawaii Business magazine about land use, environmental law, and the Hawaii Supreme Court.

In “‘Let ‘Em Eat Cake’ Comes to Hawaii, Professor Gideon Kanner has added his thought on the article. He comments on the article’s conclusion that “[i]f we don’t like the [environmental] laws anymore, we can elect officials to change them.” by writing:

Hawaii Business magazine have never heard about the principle that statutes have to be constitutional? Would they make the same argument in the case of overreaching criminal laws? Racial segregation laws? Laws impairing the exercise of the First Amendment?

…

Moreover, under the “reasoning” of these idiots, no law need be constitutional because if the legislature disregards a provision of the Bill of Rights, we can tell the complaining citizens to be better electors next time and to elect more constitutionally sensitive representatives.

Lord in heaven! Is there no limit to these guys’ stupidity? Evidently not.

Read his entire commentary here. By the way, before you are tempted to dismiss Professor Kanner as an outlander (yes, Justice Scalia really did call out-of-staters “outlanders” in a recent oral argument), his ties to Hawaii and his knowledge of our ways go way, way back.
Continue Reading Strong Letter To Follow…

Here’s one that’s coming up for the Supreme Court’s consideration at its conference next week, but which we haven’t noted until now. A Texas property owner has filed this cert petition asking the Court to review the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Hearts Bluff Game Ranch, Inc. v. State of Texas, 381 S.W.3d 486…

oral Several justices (Justice Acoba, Justice Pollock) appeared quite hostile to the DLNR’s position. Their questions went beyond the usual “devil’s advocate” type questions where the questioner is testing a theory, or speaking through counsel to the other justices.

The Judiciary’s web site summarized the issues argued:

On January 11, 2008, Respondents Craig Dobbin and…

In “Why big development is so difficult in Hawaii,” Hawaii Business magazine tackles an issue first raised by U. Hawaii lawprof David Callies in recently-published law review article (and follow-up interview), where he labeled the record of the 1993-2010 Hawaii Supreme Court on property issues “appalling” (80% overall success rate for environmental…

Here’s the amici brief of the International Municipal Lawyers Association and the National League of Cities, which urges the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Lavan v. City of Los Angeles, 693 F.3d 1022 (9th Cir. 2012).

In that case, a 2-1 panel held that the city could not presume…

You’d think the proposition in the title of this post, upheld today by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Ladd v. United States, No. 2012-5086 (Apr. 9, 2013), would seem kind of obvious. That a landowner could not be charged with notice that a government act is a taking if…

Here’s the amicus brief of the Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties for Stable Economic Growth, supporting the petitioner City of Tombstone in City of Tombstone v. United States, No. 12-1069 (cert. petition filed Feb. 27, 2013). [Disclosure:we also filed an amici brief in the case in support of Tombstone.]

The case arose after the…