Property rights

Here’s Pacific Legal Foundation’s motion asking the Virginia Supreme Court to allow us to file a brief amicus curiae which urges the court to grant a discretionary appeal and review this Petition for Appeal by a Norfolk, Virginia homeowner who, according to the trial court, suffered a taking but was prevented from presenting all evidence of just compensation, including the “residue damage” required in partial takings by the Virginia Constitution. …
Continue Reading Virginia Supreme Court Amicus: There’s A Difference Between Constitutional “Damagings” And Severance (Residue) Damages In Takings Just Compensation

Check it out, the latest volume of the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Journal is now available, both in print for those who subscribe, and online for those who prefer the pdf versions. The pieces include something property rights for everyone: academic property, Supreme Court property practice, Contracts Clause, Zoning and Land Use, and Fourth Amendment.
Continue Reading Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Journal Vol. 14 Now Available

When you think of “Vermont roads,” the first images that might come to mind are mountain byways, covered bridges, and “highways” that elsewhere might qualify as backroads. All the above is prelude, because it is here along I-95 south of White River Junction, that today’s story lay. Romaine Tenney was one of those classic Vermonters. He entered the pages of history more than fifty years ago when, in reaction to the taking of his farm for Interstate 91, he burned his house and farm buildings down, and shot himself. He had nowhere else to go. …
Continue Reading Romaine Tenney Lives: “They Stole His Land and Gave Him No Choice!”

Check out this cert petition filed yesterday. It’s from our shop, so we’re not going to be commenting much. The issue is one that the Supreme Court has expressed an interest in, but the last time it was before the Court a few years ago, the Justices decided to wait for the next case. Well, here’s the next case.
Continue Reading New Cert Petition: Do Indian Tribes Have Greater Sovereign Immunity Than Other Governments?

Check it out, an in-progress piece from lawprof Molly Brady, “Property v. Guns: The Level-of-Generality Problem in Wolford.”

This delves into the issue we posted about last week, the Second Amendment and the right to exclude, an issue argued recently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Continue Reading New Article (Lawprof Molly Brady): “Property v. Guns: The Level-of-Generality Problem in Wolford”

Check out the transcript of the recent Supreme Court oral arguments in Wolford v. Lopez.

That’s the case challenging the Hawaii statute barring individuals from carrying concealed firearms unless the owner of the premises affirmative consents as a violation of the Second Amendment.

Recall that the Supreme Court has already held that you have…

Pictured: PLF’s Steve Davis, getting us started. We’re underway today with the academic symposium “Euclid Turns 100: Rethinking an Antiquated Case and Reimagining Euclidean Zoning for the Century Ahead” at the George Mason Law School. Cosponsored by the law school’s Journal of Law, Economics, and Policy, Mercatus Center, and our outfit Pacific Legal Foundation, the symposium is designed to focus the discussion of housing, zoning, and property rights (hot topics in the headlines), and ask the question: has Euclidean zoning outlived its usefulness? And if so, what, if anything, should replace it?
Continue Reading Symposium: “Euclid Turns 100: Rethinking an Antiquated Case and Reimagining Euclidean Zoning for the Century Ahead”

Check this out, a new complaint, filed this week in a federal court in California.

[We won’t be offering all that much comment on this because it is one of ours.]

This a takings challenge to a California statute which establishes a purported 3,200-foot safety zone around “sensitive receptors” that “prohibits the drilling of new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet
of “sensitive receptors,” which includes most places where the public works, lives, and plays.” Complaint at 1.
Continue Reading There Will Be Takings: New Complaint Challenging California’s “Sensitive Receptor” Setback Statute

The view from the podium

That’s right. More than 300 of the nation’s best eminent domain lawyers, judges, appraisers, right-of-way agents, scholars, and other industry professionals are in Savannah for the next two and a half days for what is now known as the American Law Institute (“ALI” alone, no longer with the “-CLE” addition)…