July 2025

It’s not quite “Yes Virginia…” but here is our annual Independence Day missive on the legal angle on the Declaration. This may have special significance as the nation is in the process of reexamining many of our assumptions and history. But though the Founders may have been flawed individuals — as we all are — there’s really no question about the ideas they captured, and, thankfully, put down on for posterity.
Continue Reading The Verified Complaint In Equity: The Declaration Of Independence, v.249

Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following.

In Hudson Valley Property Owners Ass’n v. City of Kingston, No. 59 (June 18, 2025), the New York Court of Appeals held that after a municipality declares a housing emergency allowing it to regulate the amount of rent, it has the power to order…

Righttoretrievecover

Be sure to read this recently-published piece in the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, Mason Miller, “Hunting for Meaningful Boundaries: Virginia’s Dog Retrieval Statute and Defining Per Se Regulatory Takings Under Cedar Point,” 33 Wm. & Mary Bill of Rights J. 1271 (2025). 

The article focuses on Virginia’s so-called “right…

Screenshot 2025-06-30 201407

Yesterday, in this Order in a case we’ve been following, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider whether a municipal ordinance which allowed non-paying tenants to remain in the lessor’s property after the agreed-upon termination of a lease (nonpayment of rent) is a physical taking, or merely the regulation of the lessor/lessee relationship under…