Administrative law

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The Hornes outside the Supreme Court

“Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
Chief Justice Earl Warren,
Brown v. Board of Education

“The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact
Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics.”
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes,
dissenting in Lochner v. New York

“…prejudice against discrete and insular minorities…”
Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, in footnote 4

Here’s the Complaint, filed late last week in an Oklahoma federal court, challenging the EPA and Corps of Engineers’ new “waters of the United States” rule under the Clean Water Act.

According to the lawsuit, the new WOTUS rules are an attempt to expand the regulatory authority of the agencies well beyond what the

Attend any talk by a judge which includes legal writing tips, and there’s sure to be this one: keep it as short as is necessary to make your points. Justice Kennedy’s remark that “I never read a brief I couldn’t put down in the middle” and Chief Justice Roberts noting “I can’t

One for you muni law types (and for future students of Admin Law to assist them with writing their outlines). In Ruggles v. Yagong, No. SCWC-13-0000117 (June 25, 2015), a divided Hawaii Supreme Court refined the test for determining when a municipal ordinance or charter provision is preempted by state law.

The court clarified

Here’s one that isn’t about land use, but should be of interest to Hawaii land users, since so much of what we do is tied up in the Administrative Procedures Act

Hawaii’s APA can be a trap for the unwary: if you run to court to challenge what you believe is the agency’s appealable action, you

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            “It’s Frank’s world, we just live in it.”

                      – attributed to Dean Martin, about Frank Sinatra

A narrowly drawn opinion from the Supreme Court in Horne v. Dep’t of Agriculture, No. 14-275, argued in April and to

Honchariw v. County of Stanislaus, No. F069145 (June 3, 2015), is one especially for you Californians, addressing the somewhat unusual process under state law for challenging a land use action by local government which is claimed to take property.

Under the California Supreme Court’s decision in Hensler v. City of Glendale, 876 P.2d

For those of you who are members of the ABA Section of State and Local Government Law’s Land Use Committee (if you aren’t, you can become a member easily; just ask me how), please tune in on June 12, 2015 for our monthly teleconference.

Here’s the announcement:

Our third meeting is scheduled for Friday, June