The winner takes it all
The loser’s standing small
Beside the victory
That’s her destiny
Note: this is the first of a short series of posts on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Devillier v. Texas.
In Part II, we’ll cover the case, the procedural path that Texas dragged everyone through,
If there’s a money quote in yesterday’s opinion by the Supreme Court of Nevada which “wholly affirm[ed] a trial court judgment awarding $48 million in just compensation for Las Vegas’s regulatory taking in City of Las Vegas v. 180 Land Co., LLC, No. 24-13605 (Apr. 18, 2024), it might just be this sentence:
Although
Guess where we stopped for coffee this morning?
(A reminder: this case has nothing to do
with the convenience store.)
Note: this is the first of two posts on the recent Supreme Court opinions in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, the case in which the unanimous Court held that exactions imposed by
Here’s what folks are saying about yesterday’s unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, where the Court held that impact fees and exactions imposed by legislative action are not categorically immune from the close nexus and rough proportionality requirements already applicable to ad hoc/administratively-imposed exactions under Nollan, Dolan, and
This just in: the U.S. Supreme Court has issued a unanimous opinion in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, a case we’ve been following (not only because it is one of ours).
The Court, as predicted, held that an exaction (in this case a traffic impact fee) isn’t immune from the Nollan/Dolan nexus
Here’s one about Lucas “background principles” of property law, or maybe the Supreme Court’s current focus on “history and tradition” when it comes to defining private property for purposes of the Takings Clause.
In So. Cal. Edison Co. v. Orange County Transp. Auth., No. 22-55498 (Mar. 13, 2024), the
New York state, as you might already know, regulates the rent an owner of residential property may charge to a tenant. Under a statute adopted in 1974, regulation is triggered by a locality’s declaration of a housing emergency, and the restrictions extend for the duration of the declared emergency. Most famously — or infamously —
If you’ve been around us long enough, you know that we’re big into the notion of “generational handoff” and doing what we can to make sure that students and others who are building their careers realize that dirt law and related topics are very good areas in which to find your way.
Well, here’s the
When it comes to property rights, we’re most often focused on takings, compensation, and due process. But as you all know, the concept of property rights encompasses a whole lot more.
Our colleague, lawprof Jessica Asbridge, has posted on SSRN an article that is forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review, “Fines, Forfeitures, and Federalism,” in which she delves into the question of how the Excessive Fines Clause applies to state and local forfeitures and fines. To resolve the federalism concerns she identifies, the article argues that courts “should look to the exactions doctrine under the Takings Clause.”
Count us as intrigued.
Here’s the Abstract:
Fines are ubiquitous in modern society, and they are imposed for both serious crimes and minor civil wrongs. The U.S. Supreme Court recently recognized that the Constitution’s Excessive Fines Clause applies to the states, but that decision raises previously unexplored questions as to how to enforce the Clause’s protections in the states. A key question is what role, if any, federalism should play in crafting doctrinal rules that apply the Clause’s protections to state and local fines and related property forfeitures. This Article is the first to accord in-depth treatment to that important question.
The extent to which federalism principles should apply does not have an immediate and obvious answer. On the one hand, federalism plays a significant role in the Court’s jurisprudence on the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. The Court therefore generally takes a highly deferential approach in reviewing sentences of imprisonment. Lower courts have applied that same deferential review in the context of the Excessive Fines Clause. On the other hand, fines and forfeitures are unlike other forms of punishment—such as prison—because they are often used as a revenue source for state and local governments, creating a conflict of interest for state and local decision-making bodies.
To address this conundrum, this Article makes the novel argument that the Court should look to the exactions doctrine under the Takings Clause, which often implicates similar concerns of government self-interest and overreaching. Exactions and excessive fines are conceptually similar, but scholars thus far have overlooked the close relationship between them. The exactions doctrine gives minimal weight to federalism concerns, and it applies a heightened-scrutiny standard that is well suited to the excessive fines context. Indeed, differences between federal practice and state and local practices as to fines suggest that discretionary state and local fines should be subject to closer constitutional scrutiny than federal fines. As a recent example illustrates, such heightened scrutiny would ensure that the Excessive Fines Clause is not merely a parchment barrier, while still accounting for variations between states and localities in terms of their communities’ values and needs.
Check it out. Download your copy on SSRN here.
Continue Reading New Article: “Fines, Forfeitures, and Federalism” (Jessica Asbridge)