2020

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Next Wednesday, June 17, 2020, at 5:30pm Hawaii Time, we’ll be speaking for the King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center about “Constitutional Law and States of Emergency: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

This is a one-hour program, open to the public, where we will take a dive into Hawaii’s emergency preparedness and

Here’s the latest court order telling business and property owners that they have little chance of success on the claims asserted in various mostly-constitutional challenges to shut-down orders.

This time the businesses are in North Carolina, and appear to be — ahem — so-called “gentlemen’s clubs” (and by that, we’re not referencing those in St.

On one hand, the Colorado Supreme Court’s opinion in Forest View Co. v. Town of Monument, No.18SC793 (June 8, 2020), concluding that a restrictive covenant is not a property interest that the government needs to pay for conflicts with the decisions on similar facts from other jurisdictions (Kansas, for example). On the

Way back when (you know, less than 2 months ago, a lifetime in coronavirus time) when the plaintiffs filed the complaint, we noted that, win or lose, it laid out the takings argument in a comprehensive and understandable way.

It still may be that the arguments are worthwhile pursuing. Our more comprehensive thoughts on

We were all set to dig into the New Jersey Supreme Court’s opinion in Township of Manalapan v. Gentile, No. A-14-19 (June 2, 2020), when our colleague Joe Grather posted about it on their firm’s blog. See also this story (“Manalapan farm owner’s $4.5M eminent domain payday dumped as ‘miscarriage of justice’

Short answer: yes, with a caveat. For why there’s an asterisk on this one, take a look at the Supreme Court’s electronic docket for PennEast Pipeline Co., LLC v. New Jersey, No. 19-1039 (cert. petition Feb. 20, 2020) (a case we’ve been following), and tell me whether you think there’s anything unusual about

There’s a lot of opinion in the U.S. Court’s of Appeals’ opinion in Stratta v. Roe, No. 18-50994 (May 29, 2020). Yes, the court reversed the district court’s dismissal of a takings claim. But most of the opinion is devoted to the question of whether a Texas water conservation board — an agency whose

Did you know that the North Carolina Constitution does not formally contain a “takings” or “just compensation” clause? Instead of an outright prohibition on uncompensated takings for public use, the N.C. Constitution has a “law of the land” clause:

Sec. 19.  Law of the land; equal protection of the laws.

No person shall be