May 2015

The powers-that-be planned on building a major freeway interchange, part of which was going to be on the property owned by Jefferson Street Ventures. Problem was, Jefferson Street also had plans for its property — a shopping center — and when it came time for it to apply to the City of Indio for permits…

From the Iowa heartland, we offer the headline of the week: “Iowa landowner claims he was offered prostitute by oil pipeline company rep.“

And you’re not going to beat this lede any time soon: “A southeast Iowa landowner claims he was offered the services of a prostitute in exchange for allowing a…

In West Virginia, mineral rights can be owned separately from the surface estate. Not that unusual; something we learned in the first year of law school, in Property I. You might assume that condemning agencies’ lawyers in West Virginia and similar jurisdictions understand this, and counsel their clients accordingly.

Or maybe not, once you…

A short one from the Kansas Supreme Court. In Neighbor v. Westar Energy, Inc., No. 111972 (May, 8, 2015), the court concluded that Kansas’ “savings statute,” which allows a party in certain circumstances to refile a lawsuit that had been voluntarily dismissed without prejudice within six months, applied to eminent domain cases.  

The details…

Our American Bar Association colleague Ed Thomas (no relation, although we often joke that we’re probably cousins), the President of the Natural Hazard Mitigation Association and a guy who acknowledges that the need to protect against natural disasters must take property rights into account, has compiled some thoughts about the Court of Federal Claims’ recent…

Even though it is a trial court decision, the opinion in Township of Readington v. Solberg Aviation Co., No. HNT-L-486-06 (May 4, 2015), is well worth reading, because we think the judge gets the process for how courts evaluate claims of pretext correct. 

We posted about this case a few years ago, after the…

Remember Dunn v. City of Milwaukie? That’s the case in which the Oregon Supreme Court reversed an inverse condemnation judgment in favor of a homeowner who had sewage back up into her house after the city “hydrocleaned” the sewer system, because she had not shown that the government had “acquisitory intent.”

The court, however…