For those of you who subscribe, check your inboxes for the latest issue of the University of Hawaii Law Review.
Most worthwhile article in our view: Adam N. Miller, Up in the Air: The Status & Future of Drone Regulation in Hawaii. (Sidebar: Mr. Miller will be one of our firm’s summer associates this summer.)
Check it out. Continue Reading Latest Edition Of Hawaii Law Review: Drone Regulation
Spoiler alert! This one doesn’t have a happy ending. Continue Reading For Once I Can Say This Is Mine, You Can’t Take It: “Little Pink House” Movie Review
Today’s case is one of what we call “regionally classic” cases that we come across from time to time. You know, cases that just fit into all your preconceived notions about a place. Beach cases from Hawaii. Gator law opinions from Southern states. Vermont = snow law, California, land and wineries. Here’s another one of those from our Southern courts — Florida’s District Court of Appeals, to be precise — that we think fits the bill.
In Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comm’n v. Daws, No. 1D16-4839 (Apr. 10, 2018), the First District Court of Appeals held that owners whose properties were physically invaded by “deer dog hunters and their dogs during the forty-four days of the year when deer dog hunting is authorized” by the Commission, have not suffered a taking because these invasions were only temporary, and “do not rise to the level of permanent
Here’s a bit passed on to us from a colleague who reads USA Today. Leading off “Justice Gorsuch confirms conservatives’ hopes, liberals’ fears in first year on Supreme Court,” is this snippet, which points out a Just Compensation case in which we represented the (denied) petitioner:
WASHINGTON – Neil Gorsuch had been a member of the Supreme Court for exactly 11 weeks when he made clear in a single day what type of justice he would be.
The court struck down an Arkansas law that treated same-sex couples differently than opposite-sex couples on their children’s birth certificates. Gorsuch dissented.
The court refused to consider a challenge to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ system for evaluating disability claims. Gorsuch dissented.
The court declined to hear a challenge to a California law limiting who can carry a concealed gun in public. Gorsuch dissented.
Thus it was that on the last day of its 2016-17 term — as the court addressed gay rights, government power, gun ownership and government takings — Neil McGill Gorsuch announced to the legal world that he would not go along to get along.
“He came to the court more ready to jump into the deep end than a lot of recent nominees,” says Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
we thought the denial of cert in that case (and others) wasn’t necessarily a bad sign.
Continue Reading USA Today Notes Just Comp An Area Where Justice Gorsuch “Jumping Into The Deep End”
Sorry, we could not resist this one, based on a meme which continues to make its way around the interwebs. We’ve tailored it for takings nerds. You know who you are.
The William and Mary Law School has announced the recipient of the 2018 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize, Cardozo School of Law Professor Stewart E. Sterk.
He will receive the prize at the 15th Annual B-K Conference in Williamsburg, October 4-5, 2018.
Sterk’s publications span a wide variety of areas, ranging from property and land use regulation to trusts and estates, copyright, and the conflict of laws. A member of the American Law Institute, he served as an advisor in the preparation of the Restatement (Third) of Property (Servitudes). He has co–authored casebooks on Trusts and Estates and on Land Use, and he also edits the New York Real Estate Law Reporter, a monthly newsletter published with the assistance of Cardozo students.
He joins an impressive list of legal scholars and practitioners as prizewinners, including Frank Michelman, Richard Epstein, James Ely, Carol Rose, Michael Berger, and David
Continue Reading 2018 Brigham-Kanner Prize Announced: Professor Stewart E. Sterk, Cardozo Law
When the city condemned a portion of CED’s property back in 2012 for a highway project (replacing an intersection with a roundabout), the city’s appraiser testified that the taking did not confer any “special benefits” to CED’s remainder parcel. Eventually, CED and the city settled the case and the city paid agreed-upon compensation and severance damages.
Flash forward a few years, and to help fund the roundabout project, the city adopted a special assessment and tagged CED and other nearby landowners. Based on its street frontage, the city charged CED a total of $40k, asserting that CED’s parcel had specially benefited from the improvement project by, among other things, “a substantial increase in accessibility, which includes safer, lower cost, and short travel time for customer, deliveries and employees. These special benefits are different in kind that those enjoyed by the public for through traffic.” The city acknowledged there were also
Space is filling up, but there’s still time to join us later this month in Detroit for the 32nd Annual Land Use Institute (April-19-20).
We’ll let program Planning Chair Frank Schnidman explain all the reasons why, and we’ll add only these points: (1) it’s a very good program that won’t take much of your time (fly in for the Thursday afternoon program, stay a night, fly home on Friday evening); (2) Detroit is the place to be these days; and (3) it’s one of the best deals in CLE credits, with tuition as low as $400.
2018 Land Use Institute Brochure Detroit 5 2018
Continue Reading There’s Still Time To Join Us In Detroit: 32d Annual Land Use Institute
We don’t usually post up trial court rulings, preferring to wait until the issue percolates up through the food chain. But this one is an exception, because, well, it’s darned interesting, and we wanted to get you all on board on the ground floor.
Here’s the trial court’s order granting the plaintiffs/property owners summary judgment in the case challenging the City of Seattle’s “first in time” ordinance, under which the city established the criteria for screening tenants, and required property owners to accept the first qualified applicant as a tenant. The city acknowledged that the ordinance “affects a landlord’s ability to exercise discretion when deciding between potential tenants that may be based on factors unrelated to whether a potential tenant is a member of a protected class.” Slip op. at 2-3. The goal was to “eliminat[e] the role of implicit bias.”
In short, because a property owner might have an
Continue Reading Seattle’s “First in Time” Tenant Rule Is A Taking
Here’s the cert petition in a case we’ve been following out of the Tenth Circuit involving an attempt by a private utility company to take property which is now partly tribal land.
In Public Service Co. of New Mexico v. Barboan, 857 F.3d 1101 (10th Cir. 2017), there wasn’t a question that a federal statute prohibited a utility company from taking “tribal land.” The big issue was what land fell within that definition.
The Navajo Nation owns undivided fractional interests in two parcels which a utility claimed it needed for a electric transmission line. The land earlier had been “allotted” to individual owners, who are treated like fee owners except for certain restrictions on alienation. This land is no long tribal land or part of any reservation, and under a federal statute, allotted land is subject to an exercise of eminent domain:
Lands allotted in severalty to Indians
Continue Reading Cert Petition: Is Land Only Partly Owned By A Tribe Immune From Eminent Domain?
