A short one from the Virginia Court of Appeals. Very Virginia-specific, but there are lessons here for those of you outside the Old Dominion.
In City of Virginia Beach v. Mathias, No. 2073-23-1 (June 10, 2025), the court held that when a statute requires the condemnor to do something prior to taking property, the
810 years ago today* on a grassy plain down by the river, the barons convinced bad King John to affix his seal to Magna Carta. Or the Magna Carta. Or Magna Charta. However you want to grammarize it. (And no, he didn’t “sign” it, they didn’t do things like that back then.)
And
Here’s news we’ve been waiting for.
The William and Mary Law School announced that Professor William Fischel will be awarded the 2025 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize at the annual conference in Williamsburg in October 2025.
The Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize is presented annually to a scholar, practitioner, or jurist whose work affirms the fundamental importance
A short one from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
In Couser v. Shelby County, No. 23-3758 (June 5, 2025), the court held that local ordinances which were adopted after a pipeline company announced plans to build a project to move carbon dioxide across several states (and presumably designed to make
Here’s the latest, a student-authored note, “‘Background Principles’ and the General Law of Property,” 138 Harv. L. Rev. 2071 (2025).
Here’s the argument:
Background principles are a strong medicine. When a court analyzes a takings claim, it must first identify the property interest at issue before deciding the more complex, discretionary question of
Check out the latest episode of the Lunch Hour Podcast, featuring lawprof Donald Kochan, “Property Rights, Regulation, and the Rule of Law.”
Here’s the description:
In this episode of The Lunch Hour with Federal Newswire, host Andrew Langer sits down with Professor Donald Kochan of the Antonin Scalia Law School at
In Bojorquez v. Florida, No. SC2023-0095 (June 5, 2025), the Florida Supreme Court reached a decision that a lot of other courts have reached: taxi licenses are not “private property” and therefore there’s no taking when the government does something to affect the value of those licenses. But this one has some interesting
Knocking on the Supreme Court’s door
Earlier this week in this Order, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review four property rights cert petitions (three of which were ours):
Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following.
In this Order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied en banc review of a 2-1 panel opinion which concluded that a complaint challenging the CDC’s Co-10 residential eviction moratorium properly pleaded a physical takings claim even though the Supreme Court
Check out this recently-published student note: Cameron P. Hellerman, Misusing Eminent Domain: Pretextual Takings For A Traditional Public Use, 93 Fordham L. Rev. 2229 (2025).
The article considers the Second Circuit’s decision in Brinkmann v. Town of Southhold, about what we call “spite takings” — those in which the government’s stated public purpose