This just in: in this Order, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari and agreed to review two cases which involve property and property rights.

First, in Pung v. Isabella County, No. 25-95, the Court will be considering these Questions Presented:

1. Whether taking and selling a home to satisfy a debt to the government, and keeping the surplus value as a windfall, violates the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment when the compensation is based on the artificially depressed auction sale price rather than the property’s fair market value?

2. Whether the forfeiture of real property worth far more than needed to satisfy a tax debt but sold for fraction of its real value constitutes an excessive fine under the Eighth Amendment, particularly when the debt was never actually owed?

Here’s the cert petition in Pung. Note that the Court agreed to review the Excessive Fine question, an issue that was also presented to the Court in Tyler v. Hennepin County, but which the Court did not consider in that case. Now it will.

Second, in Walford v. Lopez, No. 24-1046, the Court agreed to review this Question Presented:

Whether the Ninth Circuit erred in holding, in direct conflict with the Second Circuit, that Hawaii may presumptively prohibit the carry of handguns by licensed concealed carry permit holders on private property open to the public unless the property owner affirmatively gives express permission to the handgun carrier?

Here’s the petition.

That looks like mostly a Second Amendment issue, but you all see the property aspects, no? Does this raise PruneYard and the right to exclude? What presumptions should the law affirm (if any) about who can enter private property and who has the ability to decide whether visitors can be strapped up?

Stay tuned for more on both cases.

And wouldn’t it be nice if the Court were to make this another “property rights trilogy” year like 1987, 2005, and 2023 (although yeah, 2005 was kind of a bad trilogy). Here’s hoping the Court adds at least one more to the docket.