Fire up your web browsers, turn up your speakers, and tune in tomorrow, Tuesday, May 5, 2020, at 10am Hawaii Time (1pm Pacific, 2pm Mountain, 3pm Central, and 4pm Eastern) for a first: the Hawaii Supreme Court will be livestreaming oral arguments in an important case about administrative law, water rights, environmental law
Environmental law
DC Cir (En Banc) Hears 3.5 Hours Of Oral Argument In Pipeline Public Use Challenge To FERC’s “Waiting for Godot” Process
If you missed the three-and-a-half hours (!) of this morning’s teleconferenced oral argument of the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a case we’ve been following (along with a related case), well, you are in luck. There are multiple ways to listen in. You can stream it from YouTube…
We’re All Ad Hoccers Now: SCOTUS Penn Centralizes The Clean Water Act (“From” Is Too Hard To Define, So Here’s A List Of Factors)
As any takings lawyer can tell you, ad hoc rules and non-exhaustive lists of “factors” a fact-finder considers can be seductive. After all, shouldn’t the outcome of a case turn on its particular facts? Who could argue with that?
The problem lies when those factors are applied in a way that seems more like one…
Fed Cir Bummer: Govt Bogarted None Of Your Kish, Slag, Or Scrap
In a case that uses terms that might reasonably lead you to think it was lifted from the script for the next stoner comedy, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Gadsden Indus. Park, LLC v. United States, No. 18-2132 (Apr. 22, 2020), held that an owner of land on…
Shades Of Takings In Both Of Yesterday’s SCOTUS Opinions
Like that old radio bit “Chicken Man” (“He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere!“), it looks like the robed ones down at 1 First Street NE are, like us, seeing takings lurking in cases where takings may not be the first thing on the menu.
For example, in yesterday’s opinions about whether the Sixth…
SCOVA Oral Argument: Does A City Have The Right To Pollute Chesapeake Bay?
Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following. We even visited the site with our class last year.
Today, the Virginia Supreme Court heard argument on the petition for appeal (streaming above from the webstream, or download the mp3 here) in what we call the oyster case because it involves the property…
Talkin’ ‘Bout My Palazzolo: Takings Claim Not Precluded Because Owner Purchased Land Already Subject To Wetlands Regs
As long-time readers know, we often kvetch about the way many courts ignore the Palazzolo rule that simply because someone obtains property subject to preexisting restrictions on use does not preclude them automatically from raising takings claims. See here, here, here, and here, for example. More about the Palazzolo case here, including…
Unboxing The 2021 (Scottsdale) ALI-CLE Eminent Domain Conference Swag: Get Yours Today!
Missed out on the 2021 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation Conference swag?
Well fear not: here’s your chance to get your high-class reminder — a kit of road warrior essentials — to save the Conference date on your calendar. We’re already underway with planning the agenda and faculty, so it’s never too soon…
Complaint: Honolulu Sues Gas Companies (For Nuisance) To Recover The Cost Of Sea-Level Rise
Make what you will of this 205-paragraph, 114 page (including 128 footnotes) Complaint, filed yesterday by the Acting Corporation Counsel for the City and County of Honolulu and a battery of outside lawyers against gasoline producers, alleging that they are responsible to pay the costs of sea-level rise and other symptoms of what the …
Cases And Materials From Today’s WM Law ACS Talk: “Pipelines at the Intersection of Environmental, Administrative, and Property Law: How Divergent Interests Joined Forces To Challenge Big Energy”
We just completed a fun hour-long talk with the students in the William and Mary Law School’s American Constitution Society, the Native American Law Society, and the Society on Environmental and Animal Law about the various pipeline cases that are ongoing nationwide. (If our tech worked, we shall post the audio recording in a future…



