Due process

A couple of years ago, we posted the complaint (actually, a petition for mandate) alleging a big regulatory takings claim against the County of San Luis Obispo based on the County’s denial of a permit to drill for oil. A very big claim. $6.24 billion big. See “Wow, That’s A Lot of Just Compensation…

When we eminent domain lawyers deal with claims that the government or some other entity is “stealing” someone’s property, we recognize that such claims are somewhat … metaphorical.

But here’s a situation where it appears that some poor fellow actually had his house, like, stolen. As in hijacked, ripped off, five-finger discounted.

The Daily…

When the one side or the other in the public debate complains about “judicial activism,” they’re usually talking about judges legislating from the bench — finding new rights, reading words into statutes that aren’t there, and the like. But that species of judicial activism doesn’t bother us all that much since we rarely see it…

Here is the recording of last month’s Hawaii Supreme Court oral arguments in Bridge Aina Lea Dev., LLC v. Bridge Aina Lea, No. CAAP-13-0000091.

This is the state court half of the case. The federal court half is pending in the Ninth Circuit, which, after oral arguments earlier in June, decided to hold…

Earlier, we posted the recording of the Ninth Circuit’s recent oral arguments in Bridge Aina Lea, LLC v. Chock, Nos. 12-15971, 12-16076, a case in which the court is considering whether State of Hawaii Land Use Commissioners have immunity from civil rights lawsuits, among other issues. The essence of the plaintiff’s allegations is that…

Remember that decision by a U.S. District Court in Tampa, Florida last year that we crowed about? The court held that a county’s “Right of Way Preservation Ordinance” which allows it to land bank for future road corridors by means of an exaction is “both coercive and confiscatory in nature and constitutionally…

Here is the oral argument recording in Bridge Aina Lea, LLC v. Chock, Nos. 12-15971, 12-16076, case argued yesterday in the Ninth Circuit at its session in Honolulu. As we previewed, the issues involved Pullman abstention and immunity. As for Williamson County ripeness, an issue the court asked the parties to brief separately…

It’s been our experience that when a court of appeals — particularly when it’s the Ninth Circuit, and it’s the eve of oral argument — raises an issue on its own after the briefs have been filed and requests supplemental briefing, then whatever that issue is must really be on the judges’ minds. They’re the cream…

Before we get to today’s post (kindly provided by our colleague and friend Paul Schwind), and the Ninth Circuit briefs, here’s some background on the cases he writes about. 

On June 10, 2014, the Ninth Circuit will ride circuit to Honolulu and hear oral arguments in a case which we’ve posted about before. The litigation is…

In 1993, in order to protect seagrasses, the city of Sanibel adopted an ordinance prohibiting the new construction of docks and piers in certain areas of town. Plaintiffs, littoral owners who bought their land after the ordinance was in place, thought that — this being Florida, and an island — it was their right to…