Check this out, a decision upholding a necessity challenge to a taking.
Necessity, you say? What’s this? Aren’t necessity challenges subject to an even more deferential judicial standard of review than the rational basis test applied to declarations of public use? Didn’t the U.S. Supreme Court in Adirondack Ry. Co. v. New York, 176
This week is light for many of you, so instead of the deep and insightful analysis of recent decisions that we’re known for (ha), we instead recommend to you two podcasts to warm the chilly nights.
So fire up the hearth, strap on those earbuds, and listen away.
First up, what is quickly becoming a
Here’s another one from the Ninth Circuit, argued on what one advocate called “land use day at the Ninth Circuit” (except, unlike the other two cases argued that day, the decision in this one gets published).
In Gearing v. City of Half Moon Bay, No. 21-16688 (Dec. 8, 2022), the panel upheld
Genuine Pennsylvania coal…
… anthracite, not bituminous
What to get the dirt lawyer in your life for the holidays? Charlie Brown got a bag of rocks for Halloween, so there’s that. Or there are the old reliable origami boulders (see below). But you are better than that and want to be a good gifter.
This story might be said to have had its roots millions of years ago.
It is about coal, after all. Anthracite coal, to be exact.
But that — and today’s date — should give you a clue that, as we teased in this post a mere 28 days ago (the Supreme Court worked hard
Check out the Ohio Supreme Court’s 6-1 opinion in State ex rel. Ohio History Connection v. Moundbuilders Country Club Co., No. 2020-0191 (Dec. 7, 2022), in which the court held held that the taking of the Country Club’s lease for the property served a public use.
Court News Ohio beat us to the punch
Here’s your must-read for today, the latest journal article from Michael Berger, “Theft, Extortion, and the Constitution: Land Use Practice Needs an Ethical Infusion,” 38 Touro L. Rev. 755 (2022).
Here’s the Abstract:
There are many ways in which property owners/developers interact with regulators. To the extent that texts and articles deal
The Supreme Court of Montana’s opinion in Tai Tam, LLC v. Missoula County, No. DA21-0660 (Nov. 15, 2022) starts off like a somewhat typical land use dispute turned into a constitutional fight. The property owner sought subdivision approvals for a 28-acre parcel to allow residential development, and the County denied the applications because “the
Due to our 808 roots, we’ve been fielding a lot of questions related to the ongoing eruption of Mauna Loa on the Big Island.
It’s big, it’s spectacular (see video above), and (for us) it’s law.
The questions (who owns “accreted” lava?, how does the NPS let the public out to see this?, what
Starting in January, we’ll be teaching the venerated, and oh-so-important Land Use course (Law 580) at the University of Hawaii’s Law School.
We’re at least temporarily stepping into some mighty big slippers (this is Hawaii, so we don’t always wear shoes), as this is the course that our mentor Professor David Callies taught for