Photo of Robert H. Thomas

Robert H. Thomas

Screenshot 2024-01-04 at 09-57-31 Keeping the Surplus Colorado Lawyer

How thrilled are we that an alum of our William and Mary Law School courses, up-and-coming Colorado property lawyer Makenna X. Johnson, has published an article in the area of law we all love (dirt law)?

Let’s just say that we’re thrilled. Makenna writes:

Colorado’s real property tax system resembles Minnesota’s principally in

Sheetz

Get ready for Sheetz v. El Dorado County, No. 22-1074, the “legislative exactions” case at the Supreme Court. [Disclosure: this is one of our firm’s cases, so we won’t be doing an analysis here. Besides, you already know where we stand on the issue.]

With the final merits brief filed last week (Petitioner’s

HAWSCT

We’re not going to go into very much detail or provide commentary on the Hawaii Supreme Court’s unanimous 88-page opinion in an eminent domain case we’ve been following, City and County of Honolulu v. Victoria Ward, Ltd., No. SCAP-22-0000335 (Dec. 29, 2023), because before we departed private practice for public interest law

As 2023 comes to a close, here are a few of the decisions that we wanted to blog about, but didn’t have the time.

  • Bruce v. Ogden City Corp., No. 22-4114 (10th Cir. Dec. 1, 2023): city demolishing a building that was damaged by fire was not a Lucas taking because the owner

Here are the cases that Michael Berger and I discussed in today’s presentation to the ABA State and Local Government Law Section’s Land Use group. It was good seeing everyone, even virtually:

Screenshot 2023-12-26 at 07-40-26 “to protect all the essential elements of ownership ” Late Nineteenth Century Emergence of the Regulatory Takings Doctrine

A must-read from Professor James Ely, “to protect all the essential elements of ownership:” Late Nineteenth Century Emergence of the Regulatory Takings Doctrine, 13 Brigham-Kanner Prop. Rts. J. ___ (forthcoming 2024).

Professor Ely, who presented this paper at the recent Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference, lays out the case that the regulatory takings

DSCF3357
The place hasn’t changed that much since 1980, has it?

As you know, the legendary Gideon Kanner left us in November. The tributes continue to be published. You’ve no doubt seen our remembrance of Professor K, as well as this one from Southern California Appellate News, this memorial from Loyola Law, our

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

In this Order, the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii made permanent its earlier ruling that Honolulu’s ordinance which expanded the minimum rental term to 90 days because it did not account for those owners who were already legally renting their properties