Photo of Robert H. Thomas

Robert H. Thomas

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.

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

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

ZPLR front page

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

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

Rogerspointmaine

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

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

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.