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Robert H. Thomas

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There’s a lot to like the panel opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Sanchez v. Torres, No. 25-2009 (Apr. 21, 2026), even though the court ultimately rejected the claim the State of New Mexico had taken the plaintiffs’ property right to exclude the public. [Note: this is one where we rep the property owners, so we won’t be adding a lot of commentary.]…
Continue Reading CA10 (2-1) Avoids Takings Claim Because Complaint Doesn’t Plausibly Allege Owners Had Right To Exclude Before New Mexico Supreme Court Changed The Law

Will no one think of our marine mammal friends, who surely will be disappointed?

According to this story, the usual Independence Day fireworks show in a Southern California beach town was shut down because (you guessed it), the California Coastal Commission prefers (not so) environmentally-friendly drones: “The California Coastal Commission has denied the permit for the July 3 fireworks show over Alamitos Bay in Long Beach. The commission cited environmental reasons for denying the permit.”…
Continue Reading California Coastal Commission: No Fourth of July Fireworks Because Drones Better For The Environment

In a state like Vermont that is heavily dependent on tourism, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that one of the most prominent issues is the policy and legal fight over short-term rentals. In 2022, Burlington, the state’s largest city, tightened up its short-term rental regulations to prohibit “nonhost-occupied short-term rentals in Burlington with…

Check this out a newly-filed complaint, filed in a New York federal court, challenging New York’s ban on hydraulic fracking as a taking. Our firm represents the plaintiffs, so we won’t be saying much here. But we will point out that this one is very much like the O.G. modern takings case, Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (1922).
Continue Reading New Complaint: NY’s Fracking Ban Is A Penn Coal v. Mahon Taking

In Garrett v. Sandersville R.R., No. A26A0274 (Apr. 15, 2026), the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the state’s Public Service Commission’s approval of the railroad’s use of eminent domain to take property for a connector to the main rail line. The court concluded that the taking qualified as a “public use” as that term is defined in Georgia’s eminent domain statute. Although there may be some private benefits, and the spur line may not actually be used by the public, what matters is that the line is available for the public’s use.
Continue Reading Georgia App: We’re Mere Judges Who Must Defer To The PUC On Whether A Taking Is For Public Use

Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following. After a loss at the Eighth Circuit, the property owners have filed a cert petition.

This is the case where court concluded that the city’s issuance of a closure order to reVamped after the business ended up on the city’s “blighted list” was not a regulatory taking. The city had issued citations for various code violations, sent compliance orders, and was apparently reacting to a fire on the premises.
Continue Reading New Cert Petition: Invoking “Police Power” Alone Doesn’t Avoid Takings

Skynet knows we’re in Milwaukee. So it flashes this story on our screen: remember that eminent domain case our of Milwaukee you participated in 16 years ago? (Skynet is scary and has a long memory.) Yes, we do. A just compensation issue. “Undivided fee” rule nonsense. Oh yes, we remember. …
Continue Reading Eminent Domain: Owner “Lost its case and lost all of its money”

Here’s the latest in a case out of a storied New York City neighborhood that we have been following.

Today, our shop filed this cert petition, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision from the New York Court of Appeals (dun-dun) which held that New York City’s charging a massive fee…

Happy Birthday to Hugo Grotius, author of the treatise “De Jure Belli et Pacis” (1625) — perhaps fittingly books about war and peace — which first used the phrase “eminent domain” to describe the sovereign power to forcibly acquire private property for public use and upon provision of compensation.
Continue Reading Happy 442d Birthday To Hugo Grotius, Who Coined The Term “Eminent Domain”

We know that courts are loathe to set aside settlement agreements. But when a judicial opinion starts off this way and you are the defendant, you know you are likely in trouble:

Stephanie Walker, an elderly widow with limited income, was left suddenly homeless when her Charlotte home was flooded with raw sewage from…