The current headlines — and a couple of inquiries from colleagues and clients — got us to thinking about government power in times of crisis and the tension between that power and property and other individual rights.
On one hand, court decisions going back over the centuries have told us that courts are reluctant to
Here’s the cert petition we’ve been eagerly awaiting in a case we’ve been following about Seattle’s rewriting of the traditional lessor-lessee relationship.
The petition arose out of facial takings and due process challenges to Seattle’s “first in time” rule for residential leasing. The city adopted an ordinance requiring owners to rent to the first tenant
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
Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following that involves a local government prohibiting, via a zoning ordinance, the mining of silica (used as “frac sand”). Kind of like how Pennsylvania barred certain coal mining in our old friend, Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (1922).
In Minnesota (where our story
Here’s the cert petition that we’ve been eagerly waiting to drop in a case we’ve been following (and which gathered a lot of public — and academic — attention and outrage).
Yes, this is the case where the Village police pretty much destroyed a family home in the course of their efforts to dislodge a
Here’s the video of the OA held this morning (March 10, 2020) in a case we’ve been following, about the statute of limitations governing inverse claims. Maryland Reclamation Association filed an regulatory takings claim in 2013, and eventually the jury awarded a whopping $45 million in just compensation and interest. Hartford County asserted the
Here are the final cert-stage briefs in a case we’ve been following for what seems to be a long time.
We say that because we represented the property owner the last time it was up before SCOTUS, when we came tantalizingly close to making the cut.
After the Court denied review, the property
At the recent ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation Conference in Nashville, our colleagues, New York’s Jon Houghton and Hawaii’s Dave Day presented a very informative program on litigating regulatory takings cases. Jon is a property owner-side lawyer, while Dave is a Deputy Attorney General who represents the State of Hawaii in such
You recall that a short while ago, in Oil States Energy Servs., LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, 138 S. Ct. 1365 (2018), the Supreme Court held that patents are a form of “public property” (more like a government-created entitlement), and thus Congress can withhold the usual Article III tribunal and a jury when
The local government does stuff that local governments do. Things like improve nearby roads. In doing so, they often interfere with the ingress and egress that nearby landowners enjoy.
In Clark v. City of Pembroke Pines, No. 4D18-3549 (Feb. 26, 2020), the city had many reasons for erecting concrete barriers (among them the closure