January 2015

No, it’s not about the weird dude down at the Planning Department, but a new (draft) article by two familiar property lawprofs, Lee Fennell and Eduardo Penalver. Here’s the abstract:

How can the Constitution protect landowners from government exploitation without disabling the machinery that protects landowners from each other? The Supreme Court left this central

Land users, please read the California Court of Appeal’s opinion in Woody’s Group, Inc. v. City of Newport Beach, No.G050155 (Jan. 29, 2015), which starts off with this straightforward summary:

The language of the law is replete with synonyms for fairness: due process, equal protection, good faith, harmless error are all ways of expressing

The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but they do grind. Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit granted a motion we filed back in June 2013, and permitted us to file this amicus brief on behalf of the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association in a case that is scheduled to be argued in mid-February 2015, Rancho de

Sorrentino v. Godinez, No. 13-3421 (Jan. 23, 2015) was a lawsuit by prisoners complaining that several items which they purchased from the prison commisary — a fan and a typewriter — were later declared by the warden to be prohibited contraband.

Under the new rules, their property was “removed,” and the prisoners given options

This is a longer post, but since we think this case may be going further and is worth watching, we’re going to hit it up in some detail.

In City of Chicago v. Eychaner, No. 05L050792 (Jan. 21, 2015), the Illinois Appellate Court upheld the taking of private vacant land near the Chicago Loop (Eychaner’s

The Township of Ocean, New Jersey downzoned the plaintiffs’ residentially-and-commercially-zoned land to “Environmental Conservation.” The EC district allows “only very low density residential development or other low intensity uses,” with a minimum lot size of 20 acres. 

The plaintiffs, who own 34 acres subject the EC zoning, challenged the zoning ordinance, asserting it was “arbitrary, unreasonable

Last we checked in with the Bridge Aina Lea case, the Ninth Circuit said it would hold off on a decision until the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled in the associated state court litigation (see 9th Cir Says “Let’s Wait” On Hawaii Supreme Court To Rule In Bridge Aina Lea).

This is the federal court

AFTER

Here at invesecondemnation.com, we do our best to bring you timely decisons on cases of interest from around the nation and the world. But today we’ve outdone ourselves, because we have an opinion from the Connecticut Court of Appeals, issued … next week: Dep’t of Transportation v. Cheriha, LLC, No. 155AP144