Articles and publications

Check this out. A student-authored case summary from the latest edition of the Harvard Law Review, commenting on Fulton v. Fulton County Board of Commissioners, an Eleventh Circuit case we designated as an honorable mention in 2025’s highlights. The Fulton panel split 2-1 (and we understand that the case is pending a decision on the County’s en banc petition), with the majority addressing the issue the U.S. Supreme Court sidestepped in DeVillier v. Texas, 601 U.S. 285 (2024): do you need Congress’s ok to sue for just compensation for a taking?
Continue Reading Harvard Law Review Recent Case Summary: Eleventh Circuit Used A “Novel” Remedies Test To Hold The Just Compensation Clause Is Self-Executing

Check out this recently-published article by colleague Robert (Bob) Grace, MAI, “Assessing Change in Market Value of Rural Real Property Post-Wildfire in the Great Plains” in the latest issue of the Appraisal Journal. …
Continue Reading New Article: Bob Grace, “Assessing Change in Market Value of Rural Real Property Post-Wildfire in the Great Plains” (Appraisal Journal)

A new must-read from lawprofs Lee Anne Fennell (Chicago) and Timothy Mulvaney (Tex. A&M) in the Yale Law Journal, “The Exactions Illusion: Sheetz’s Missing Dissent,” 135 Yale L.J. 1143 (2026). Now don’t get us wrong: we’re no offering this as a “must-read” because we agree with or endorse the article’s content and premise, but because we think the content and premise are subject to challenge.
Continue Reading New Article (Fennell & Mulvaney): “The Exactions Illusion: Sheetz’s Missing Dissent,” 135 Yale L.J. 1143 (2026)

Today’s post is by our friend and Pacific Legal Foundation colleague Steve Davis, reporting on his recent attendance at the recent Texas A & M Journal of Property Law symposium, “Property Law and ‘Aggie Spirit.'”…
Continue Reading Texas A & M Journal of Property Law Symposium Report: “Day Zero: How Cities Run Out of Water”

Check out this call for papers from our firm, Pacific Legal Foundation.

The call of the question is intriguing: is there room in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence for a property-base view (as opposed to the prevalent Katz “expectation of privacy” focus now in vogue? After all, the Fourth Amendment mentions things that we classify as property…

Check it out, an in-progress piece from lawprof Molly Brady, “Property v. Guns: The Level-of-Generality Problem in Wolford.”

This delves into the issue we posted about last week, the Second Amendment and the right to exclude, an issue argued recently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Continue Reading New Article (Lawprof Molly Brady): “Property v. Guns: The Level-of-Generality Problem in Wolford”

Each year, the Texas A & M Journal of Property Law publishes a symposium on some aspect of dirt law.

This year, the subject is “Day Zero: How Cities Run Out of Water.”

Here’s the program description:

This symposium is centered around Professor Rhett Larson’s (Arizona State University) forthcoming book, Day Zero: …

Here’s one you don’t want to miss. Lawprof Shelley Ross Saxer has published “Forfeiture Takings, Police Power, and Necessity Destruction,” 80 U. Miami L. Rev. 147 (2025).

Here’s the Abstract:

Civil forfeiture laws allow law enforcement to seize property when there is probable cause it has been used or possessed in violation of…

Check out a newly-published law review article by lawprof Timothy Harris, “The Contracts Clause Can be Enforced via Section 1983, Period: The Nonexistent Circuit Court ‘Split’,” 78 SMU L. Rev. Forum 106 (2025).

The article delves into the issue of whether 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is the cause of action to bring…

Rethinking
Available now. 

Just published: Rethinking the Law of Private Property, edited by lawprof Jan Laitos, with chapters by some of Dirt Law’s most notable luminaries. Here’s the abstract:

In Rethinking the Law of Private Property, eminent legal scholars consider how private property rights might be transformed and realigned to better cope with modern challenges.