42 U.S.C. § 1983 | Civil Rights

Check this out, a recently-filed cert petition in a case we’ve been following, filed by our friends and colleagues at the Institute for Justice. This one involves an issue we’ve been on top of also, most recently in these two cases (see here and here).

That is, what does the Supreme Court’s description

Screenshot 2023-03-03 at 08-06-54 Robert Thomas inversecondemnation.com on Twitter

Let’s say you know nothing else about an appeal except it is being decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the case is a constitutional challenge to rent control. What’s your best guess about the outcome (the district court dismissed for failure to state a claim)?

When the Second Circuit

Screenshot 2023-02-23 at 11-13-54 Toward Principled Background Principles in Takings Law

Check this out, a new article co-authored by a federal judge’s law clerk and lawprof Lior Strahilevitz (Chicago). With the title, “Toward Principled Background Principles in Takings Law” are we going to read it? You bet. (Unlike a lot of new scholarship that we post here, we read this one immediately.)

Here’s the

ThomasMitchell

If you are in Honolulu, please join us on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, 4:30-5:30 p.m. at the University of Hawaii Law School for Professor Thomas Mitchell on “Heirs’ Property and the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act: Challenges, Solutions, and Historic Reform.”

Our U.H. Land Use class is attending to learn more about “heirs’ property” (described as “the biggest problem you’ve never heard of“), and so should you. Yes, Hawaii has adopted the Uniform Partition of Heirs’ Property Act and we have followed this issue for some time, but if you didn’t know about this, now is your chance to catch up.

Here are the details from the U.H. newsletter:

Carlsmith Ball presents the 2023 Distinguished Gifford Lecturer in Real Property, Thomas W. Mitchell. Mitchell is a professor at Boston College Law School, where he holds the Robert F. Drinan, S.J. Endowed Chair and serves as the Director of the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights. He is a national expert on property issues facing disadvantaged families and communities and has published leading scholarly works addressing these matters.

In 2020, Professor Mitchell was named one of 21 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of the substantial impact his professional work has had in assisting disadvantaged farmers and property owners, people who are disproportionately but not exclusively African American and other people of color. He is the only lawyer in his MacArthur Fellowship class. Please join us for this Distinguished Gifford Lecture; a light reception is to follow from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.

Come, join us for this compelling session.
Continue Reading Join Us On Wed March 8 at 4:30pm For 2023 Distinguished Gifford Lecture In Real Property – Prof Thomas Mitchell On “Heirs’ Property & the Uniform Partition of Heirs’ Property Act: Challenges, Solutions, & Historic Reform”

40th ALI-CLE

We were eagerly anticipating 40th American Law Institute-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation Conference. The 2022 Conference in Scottsdale was one of the first meetings where everyone was back in-person (and was a smashing success), but that conference was early in the game so not everyone could or would attend. But in the past

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

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has affirmed the Eastern District of New York’s 12(b)(6) dismissal of a complaint alleging that New York (state)’s sweeping amendments to its Rent Stabilization (rent control) statute effected physical and regulatory takings.

First

Screenshot 2023-02-07 at 09-17-30 Emerging Issues in Property Rights

Join our Pacific Legal Foundation colleagues Jon Houghton, Daniel Woislaw, Kady Valois, and Sam Spiegelman (moderating) tomorrow, Wednesday, February 8, 2023, at 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET for a free webinar, “Emerging Issues in Property Rights.”

Here’s the agenda:

Protecting private property rights has been at the heart of PLF’s

We really want you there…

One (nearly) last reminder that there’s still time to register for your space at the 40th ALI-CLE Eminent Domain & Land Valuation Litigation Conference, February 1-4, 2023, in Austin. In the past several years, we have sold out due to the conference room capacity and the conference hotel block.

We’ve had the North Dakota Supreme Court’s opinion in Wilkinson v. Bd. of Univ. & School Lands, No. 20220037 (Nov. 10, 2022), in our queue for a while because it isn’t exactly the clearest opinion we’ve come across. It is relatively short, so that’s not the issue. But it is cryptic and poorly written

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