May 2019

Rowlettmap

Here’s one we’ve been waiting to drop. In KMS Retail Rowlett, LP v. City of Rowlett, No. 17-0850 (May 17, 2019), a deeply divided Texas Supreme Court held that a statute — adopted in response to Kelo — which seems to limit eminent domain power, also contains a massive hole: according to the court…

Here’s what we’re reading today, in between real work:

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Yesterday, on behalf of our Owners’ Counsel of America colleagues, we filed this request asking the U.S. Court of Appeals to consider our amicus brief in support of the property owners in a natural gas act pipeline case.

The issue is what evidence the trier of fact in a compensation trial may consider about “stigma”…

The Arizona Court of Appeals’ opinion in Arizona Electrical Power Cooperative v. DJL 2007 LLC, No. 1 CA-CV 16-0097 (May 9, 2019), is about the date of valuation in eminent domain, but beyond that is interesting to us because it sheds light on a case we’ve been following about natural gas pipelines and the…

On one hand, there’s nothing really new in the Hawaii Supreme Court’s opinion in In re Hawaii Electric Light Co., No. SCOT-17-630 (May 10, 2019), because the court has previously told us the answers to each the component questions in the case:

  • On the ultimate question posed in the title, must the PUC consider

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Remember that Christopher Nolan movie from a few years ago, “Inception,” with its dream-within-a-dream storyline?

Well, that’s what a recently-filed cert petition which asks the U.S. Supreme Court to jump into California’s inverse-condemnation-liability-for-wildfires issue reminds us of with its taking-within-a-taking argument, as detailed in the Question Presented:

Whether it is an uncompensated…

The title of this post may have you wondering, especially the part about how a regulation that invites others to physically enter private property, is determined by a court to not be a physical taking. (The court also hints at looking at a physical taking under Penn Central, and not by applying per se…

Here’s what’s on the reading list for today:

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The city conceded that its street and storm water project resulted in a neighboring commercial property flooding three times, and that “the evidence supported a prima facie case of a ‘partial taking’ of Lenertz’s property.” So far, so good. 

But Lenertz had alleged the city’s project caused past and future flooding, and resulted in a…

Here’s the Reply Brief in a case which we’ve been following (and in which we filed this amici brief). This is the one in which landowners are challenging the district court’s issuance of an injunction in a Natural Gas Act taking which allow a private condemnor to obtain immediate possession of the land being…