Here’s the latest in an issue we’ve been following.
In Fletcher Properties, Inc. v. City of Minneapolis, No. A23-0191 (July 30, 2025), the Minnesota Supreme Court held that the city barring owners from refusing to rent residential properties to a prospective tenant because the applicant is on public assistance is not a taking.
What
The room where it happened.
We’re not going to say much about the California Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, No. C093682 (July 29, 2025), which is back in the California court system after remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, because it is one of ours.
What is private property? James Madison called it “that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.” The Constitution’s Takings Clause doesn’t define it; it simply prohibits the taking of private property for public use without just compensation.
In this academic workshop &ndash
It appears that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has addressed the issue the U.S. Supreme Court sidestepped recently in DeVillier v. Texas, 601 U.S. 285 (2024): do you need Congress’s ok to sue for just compensation for a taking?
In Fulton v. Fulton County Bd of Commissioners, No. 22012041
Over there is where the “little pink house” was.
July 26, 2025.
Regular readers know that from time to time, we make what we call property or takings pilgrimages to the sites of famous cases. Inter alia: Kaiser Aetna, Nollan, Dolan, Loretto, Penn Central, Hadacheck, the High Line
Today we have a guest post by New York colleague Jennifer Polovetsky, who writes about an age-old question: what are “special benefits” that accrue to the remainder in a partial taking, and can these benefits be offset against just compensation or severance damages?
Thanks to Jennifer (and to the New York Law Journal) for
Check this out, a new student note published in the latest edition of the William and Mary Environmental and Policy Review, J. Cameron Niemeyer, Stopping a Cat-tastrophe: States Must Develop Stricter Management Regimes for Controlling Feral Cat Populations, 49 Wm. & Mary Env’t L. & Pol’y Rev. 739 (2025).
Readers of this blog are surely familiar with the soft spot we have in our heart for the Australian film, “The Castle.”
We described it as “Kelo Down Under,” noting that despite its comic spin, the film accurately portrays why owners of property object to eminent domain (in Australia, “compulsory
This interesting — and kind of funny — story has been circulating: “Judge’s ruling means Charlottesville has no zoning laws whatsoever right now.”
What happened? Is the counter-Euclid revolution underway? Did the judge rediscover Nectow? Did Charlottesville voters decide to go Full Houston?
No, nothing quite as dramatic. The story
