Here’s the Reply Brief in a case we’ve been following, Brott v. United States, No. 17-712, in which the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to consider whether property owners who sue the federal government for a taking are entitled to both an Article III forum, and to have the issues determined by a jury.
Robert H. Thomas
When Is A Taking For Private Benefit Compensable? When It’s A Statutory Inverse Condemnation In North Carolina
If the headline of this post throws you off a bit, not to worry: it was designed to. Because the situation in the North Carolina Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Wilkie v. City of Boiling Spring Lakes, No. 44PA17 (Mar. 2, 2018), turned the usual arguments on their heads.
In condemnation cases, if the…
New Cert Grant: Overrule Williamson County’s Exhaustion Of State Procedures Requirement?
The last time the U.S. Supreme Court faced Williamson County in a merits case, the property owners made the mistake of not challenging that case’s “state procedures” requirement directly. An exchange with Justice O’Connor went like this; from the transcript:
Justice O’Connor: And you haven’t asked us to revisit that Williamson County case, have…
New Article: Murr And Other “Blurred Lines”
Here’s an article (“Murr v. Wisconsin: The Supreme Court Rewrites Property Rules in Multiple-Parcel Regulatory Takings Cases“), which we authored along with a colleague, published in February 2018’s Zoning and Planning Law Report, about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Murr v. Wisconsin, the case about the “larger parcel” in…
New Cert Petition: When A Federal Court Takes Possession Of “Innocent Spouse’s” Property For Securities Fraud, Is This A Judicial Taking?
Thanks to a colleague for giving us the heads-up about a recently-filed cert petition involving an issue we covered in a different case recently: judicial takings. Specifically, an allegation that a federal court has taken property, and as a consequence, the United States owes just compensation. The background of the case is pretty interesting …
Maine: Condemnation To Wipe Out Quiet Title Action Is A Taking For Public Use
In Bayberry Cove Children’s Land Trust v. Town of Steuben, No. Was-17-258 (Feb. 27, 2018), the Maine Supreme Judicial Court considered whether the Town’s exercise of eminent domain to take an interest to a road the public had apparently been using for decades (if not centuries) was for public use.
A 2013 survey, however…
New Cert Petition: Are The Relocation Act’s Attorneys’ Fee Provisions Merely Guidelines?
Here’s the cert petition, recently filed in a case we’ve been following from South Dakota.
The statute at issue — the federal Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Act — isn’t one that gets a lot of attention, particularly at the Supreme Court. But it’s an area that is ripe for review. The…
32nd Annual Land Use Institute: Detroit, April 19-20, 2018
Mark your calendars, plan to come: Detroit, April 19-20, 2018. For what is perhaps the best deal in CLE (tuition as low as $400), the 32d Annual Land Use Institute, sponsored by our section of the ABA, the Section of State and Local Government Law.
The venue is the…
HAWICA: Vacation Rental Home Is “Public Accommodation,” And Can’t Discriminate Based On Sexual Orientation
Here’s one from the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals, Cervelli v. Bufford, No. CAAP-13-896 (Feb. 23, 2018), in which the court considered whether homeowners who rented out rooms in their home to the public, but refused to do so to a lesbian couple, violated Hawaii’s public accommodation laws, or were sheltered from the statute…
US BIO In Brott: No, The Fifth Amendment Isn’t Really “Self-Executing”
Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following since its inception, Brott v. United States, the case which asks the deceptively simple question of whether property owners who sue the federal government for a taking are entitled to both an Article III forum, and to have the issues determined by a jury.…



