On a day earlier this week in which a different practice group in our firm Pacific Legal Foundation (incidentally led by a Property Rights lawyer, Chris Kieser, by the way) saw the U.S. Supreme Court agree to review a very important case, we also saw the Court deny certiorari in two takings cases we were watching.
Continue Reading SCOTUS Denies Two Takings Petitions, But Leaves Tantalizing Clues
Here’s the latest in an issue we’ve been following for a long time: must a property owner first try to change the law which is claimed to work a taking before bringing a takings claim in court? In other words, in order for the government to have made a “final decision” for Williamson County purposes does the legislature have to decline to amend the very law being challenged?
Continue Reading New Cert Petition: Does A Property Owner Need To Seek A Legislative Change To Ripen A Takings Claim?
Here’s the cert petition (filed yesterday) which asks whether a takings challenge to rent control which is justiciable under Article III (plaintiff has suffered a concrete injury that is fairly traceable to the challenged restrictions, and a ruling will redress that injury) may nonetheless be dismissed because the court believes that if the owner would only continue to chase the government via its own administrative procedures, she might get relief (thus relieving the courts of the burden of making a ruling). That’s right, the “prudential ripeness” question that has divided the lower courts.
Continue Reading New Cert Petition (Ours): Can Courts Choose To Avoid Constitutional Challenges To Rent Control By Making Owners Chase Pointless Denials?
Check out this recently-filed cert petition, which might be filed under government “keepings” as well as takings. In Greene v. Kansas Dep’t of Revenue, 576 P.3d 320 (Kan. Ct. App. 2025), the Kansas Court of Appeals held that the Department didn’t owe just compensation after it seized some of Greene’s property (the petition and the lower court’s opinion don’t really say what this property is, but we can presume it is some of the “potpourri substance named ‘Diablo’ that the Kansas Board of Pharmacy had deemed a controlled substance” that was at the heart of the tax dispute.
Continue Reading New Cert Petition: Temporarily Keeping Property Seized For Taxes After A Ruling The Taxes Were Not Owed Is A Taking
Here’s a recently-filed cert petition which asks this Question Presented: “Is the application of a prudential rule of exhaustion, where the only relief is voluntary cessation of government’s physical possession, a decision on the merits of an uncompensated Takings Clause claim?”
Continue Reading New Cert Petition: Remember First English?