2020

As we understand it, at some of our leading law schools the basic Property course is no longer a required 1L course. It’s an elective. Quelle horreur

We think that’s a bad idea. Our Property I course (a 4-credit one-semester monster) is where we learned about things like treasure trove (finders, keepers –

If you missed the three-and-a-half hours (!) of this morning’s teleconferenced oral argument of the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a case we’ve been following (along with a related case), well, you are in luck. There are multiple ways to listen in. You can stream it from YouTube

On one hand, there’s a lot going on in the Maryland Court of Appeal’s opinion in Maryland Reclamation Assoc, Inc. v. Harford County, No. 52 (Apr. 24, 2020), a case we’ve been following. The opinion is a whopping 81 pages, and details facts that go back decades. On the other hand, the opinion

6a00d83451707369e201b8d25028d2970c-800wi

CHALLENGE: find the “damage” on the Loretto building

Here’s the amicus brief filed today by Pacific Legal Foundation that urges the Supreme Court to grant our cert petition in a case that asks:

To constitute a taking under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, must a physical invasion also destroy or substantially impair an owner’s economically

IMG_20191106_112246

As any takings lawyer can tell you, ad hoc rules and non-exhaustive lists of “factors” a fact-finder considers can be seductive. After all, shouldn’t the outcome of a case turn on its particular facts? Who could argue with that?

The problem lies when those factors are applied in a way that seems more like one

ALICLE-tagline-250x90

There’s still time to join us tomorrow, Friday, April 24, 2020 at 2-3pm Eastern Time, they will be presenting “Strategies for Litigating Regulatory Taking Cases” in a webinar produced by ALI-CLE. Register here (multiple attendee discounts available). 

At the recent ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation Conference in Nashville, our colleagues

FULJ_logo_2-5-300x66@2x

Lacking things to read during your shut-down? Well, we have the solution: the Fordham Urban Law Journal has devoted an entire issue to Knick and takings ripeness (“Taking Account: Procedure, Substance, and Stare Decisis in the Post-Knick World“). 

Our article “Sublimating Municipal Home Rule and Separation of Powers in Knick v.

In a case that uses terms that might reasonably lead you to think it was lifted from the script for the next stoner comedy, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Gadsden Indus. Park, LLC v. United States, No. 18-2132 (Apr. 22, 2020), held that an owner of land on