…No, not Sgt. Pepper. It was on this day in 1984 that the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 8-0 decision in Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U.S. 229 (1984), as this article (“Today in 1984: SCOTUS Upholds Hawaii Land Redistribution Eminent Domain Plan“) correctly notes.
Check it out. The author, “an
Those of us who practice eminent domain and land use law see the world through a different lens than everyone else. When normal people get stuck in traffic because of highway construction, they may view it as a mass of cement mixers, graders, and safety-vested crews. We eminent domain lawyers see partial takes, severance damages
Ah, the speed of the internet: we were all set to write up the recent decision by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Sorenti Bros., Inc. v. Commonwealth, No. SJC-11420 (May 19, 2014), when we noticed that the good folks over at the Massachusetts Land Use Monitor had already done so.
So
Worth reading: Gideon Kanner, Detroit and the Decline of Urban America, 2013 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1547 (2014), in the forthcoming issue of that august publication. Its not yet available on the law review’s web site, but Professor Kanner has written up a summary on his blog (he might even send you a
Before we get to today’s post (kindly provided by our colleague and friend Paul Schwind), and the Ninth Circuit briefs, here’s some background on the cases he writes about.
On June 10, 2014, the Ninth Circuit will ride circuit to Honolulu and hear oral arguments in a case which we’ve posted about before. The litigation is
Earlier this year, we co-chaired the Hawaii Agriculture Conference, and one of the hottest items on the agenda was the “GMO” issue, now brewing in at least two Hawaii courts (the Kauai ordinance was challenged in federal court, while the Big Island ordinance was challenged in the Third Circuit).
We’re
In 1993, in order to protect seagrasses, the city of Sanibel adopted an ordinance prohibiting the new construction of docks and piers in certain areas of town. Plaintiffs, littoral owners who bought their land after the ordinance was in place, thought that — this being Florida, and an island — it was their right to
A few months ago, we commented on the proposed “environmental court,” a bill working its way through the Hawaii legislature. We called it a bad idea, and hoped the Lawgivers would see the light and let this idea fade away.
It looks like we were unjustifiably optimistic, and both houses have now passed the bill
Yesterday, we posted one of those only-in-Hawaii kind of cases. Today, by coincidence, is one of those only-in-the-south type of cases:
The Christmases’ wild-alligator-nuisance claim is a case of first impression in Mississippi.
In Christmas v. Exxon Mobil Corp., No. 2011-CT-01311-SCT (May 15, 2014), the Mississippi Supreme Court held that a
Here’s one from the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals that illustrates the interesting only-in-Hawaii twists that can happen in our property law.
In Malulani Group, Ltd. v. Kaupo Ranch, Ltd., No. 30509 (May 5, 2014), the issue was whether the owner of a landlocked parcel could assert an easement implied by necessity over