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).
With the 100th anniversary of Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. nearly upon us in 2026, we’ve put together a series of events designed to reexamine the case that set the stage for a century’s-worth of intense land use regulations and restrictions.
Are Euclid‘s assumptions and conclusions still valid? If the
Last year, we attended a conference devoted to the future of regulatory takings, hosted by the Antonin Scalia School of Law (George Mason U), and Pacific Legal Foundation.
The publisher, the Journal of Law, Economics, and Policy has released the articles and essays from that conference, and made them available here.
Here’s the
Be sure to check out the latest scholarship from lawprof Molly Brady, which sheds new light on the public use question in eminent domain, “Debates Over ‘Public Use’ in the State Constitutional Conventions,” forthcoming from the Yale Journal of Regulation.
Here’s the Abstract:
Historians and legal scholars alike have previously noted that the
Be sure to read this recently-published piece in the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, Mason Miller, “Hunting for Meaningful Boundaries: Virginia’s Dog Retrieval Statute and Defining Per Se Regulatory Takings Under Cedar Point,” 33 Wm. & Mary Bill of Rights J. 1271 (2025).
The article focuses on Virginia’s so-called “right
Here’s the latest, a student-authored note, “‘Background Principles’ and the General Law of Property,” 138 Harv. L. Rev. 2071 (2025).
Here’s the argument:
Background principles are a strong medicine. When a court analyzes a takings claim, it must first identify the property interest at issue before deciding the more complex, discretionary question of
Check out this recently-published student note: Cameron P. Hellerman, Misusing Eminent Domain: Pretextual Takings For A Traditional Public Use, 93 Fordham L. Rev. 2229 (2025).
The article considers the Second Circuit’s decision in Brinkmann v. Town of Southhold, about what we call “spite takings” — those in which the government’s stated public purpose
You know the claim: even after the federal courts opened back up to regulatory takings claims, winning a case is still pretty difficult.
Yes, that may be by design: maybe it’s not supposed to be easy to get in the way of the regulatory state and prevail on a claim that a government action
The long-awaited book from lawprof Eric Claeys, “Natural Property Rights” (Cambridge Press 2025) has dropped.
More, after we’ve had a chance to read it.
Now mind you, in the hardcover edition the thing ain’t exactly cheap (£100 GBP from Cambridge, or $130 from Amazon). But frankly, for an academic
Lawprof Timothy Mulvaney has published “Reconceptualizing ‘Background Principles’ in Takings Law,” 109 Minn. L. Rev. 689 (2025).
If the title alone doesn’t grab your interest, here’s the summary from the article’s introduction:
Both libertarians and progressives rejoiced in the result reached by the Supreme Court in the 2023 matter of Tyler v. Hennepin County. This Article asserts that such unified celebration has overshadowed the extent to which the Supreme Court’s reasoning calls into question even our most foundational assumptions about the meaning of property and the takings protections the Constitution affords to it. Followed to its literal end, Tyler remarkably suggests that owners may well need to ground their expectations in the background principles of property laws endorsed by a majority of states rather than in those underpinning the laws of their own state.
Suspicious that the Court intended such a revolutionary upheaval of the state variations that have characterized our federalist system for more than two centuries, the Article contends that Tyler is better interpreted as an epic failure in judicial transparency: The opinion reflects a sly reticence to acknowledge the reality that resolving competing claims to property demands moral judgment regarding the background principles of property law. In following this deceptive course, Tyler invites a race to legislative homogeneity and erects a dangerous barrier to states’ abilities to innovate in the face of evolving social, economic, and environmental conditions.
Check it out.
Continue Reading New Article: “Reconceptualizing ‘Background Principles’ in Takings Law,” 109 Minn. L. Rev. 689 (2025)