2020

They’re coming so fast, we can hardly keep up.

Today, in Castillo v. United States, No. 19-1158 (Feb. 20, 2020), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit resolved a common issue in rails-to-trails takings cases: when a property owner holds title and her deed describes the land as bordering on a

Check out the latest (and final) episode of the Institute for Justice’s “Bound by Oath” podcast. IJ’s John K. Ross was kind enough to ask us to be a guest on the show titled “Excessive Fines,” and our friend and colleague Bob McNamara and I sat down in Nashville to record our

Here’s the latest in a long-running, multi-forum takings case about the development of affordable housing on the Big Island of Hawaii. 

Last we saw, the District Court awarded nominal compensation ($1), after the jury concluded that the State of Hawaii took Aina Lea’s property. The parties cross-appealed: the State argues the district court should have

Openthefloodgates

We’re doing lawyer things this week, so can’t do much blogging, so we’re going to just leave this here, the Court of Federal Claims’s Opinion and Order in the case seeking compensation for a taking by the “downstream” owners whose lands were flooded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the aftermath of Hurricane

It’s Friday (and Valentine’s Day), so we’ll make this quick, even thought this is one of those cases with a fact pattern that you just can’t digest quickly: In Day v. Idaho DOT, No. 45552 (Feb. 14, 2020), the Supreme Court of Idaho held that only the property owners at the time of the

NashvilleALICLEposter

Each of the three big presentation rooms was full at our recent ALI-CLE Eminent Domain & Land Valuation Litigation Conference in Nashville. Nearly 300 lawyers, judges, appraisers, professors, students, relocation experts, and others eminent domain professionals coming together for 3 days of programming and fellowship. I have uploaded all of the photos that I took

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Check out these two amici briefs, just filed in a case we’ve been following, about what a property owner who is awarded just compensation in a state court eminent domain lawsuit is supposed to do if the local government that is ordered to pay the just compensation judgment … doesn’t. 

The property owner sued

W Su cover page

Be sure to download and read this article, recently published in the Virginia Law Review by legal scholar Wanling Su with the deceptively simple title, “What is Just Compensation?

The article delves into the history of ad quod damnum and concludes that “just” compensation means a jury must determine compensation. That’s an

You all know the movie trope of the good guy setting off an explosion and then coolly turning and (in slow-motion) walking away framed by the blast (so cleverly parodied above)? Well, here’s the judicial equivalent.

In UGI Sunbury LLC v. 1.75 Acres, No. 18-3126 (Feb. 11, 2020), the U.S. Court of Appeals concluded that