In the wake of Kelo, the people of Virginia overwhelmingly amended their state constitution (the vote was 75% in favor) to make it much clearer about what qualifies as a public use supporting an exercise of eminent domain, what doesn’t qualify, and how public use is proven:
That the General Assembly shall pass no
We had to read the facts of the Tennessee Court of Appeals’ opinion in City of Pigeon Forge v. RLR Investments, LLC, No. E2023-01802-COA-R3-DV (Apr. 20, 2025) a couple of times over, just to make sure we were understanding what was going on. But the effort was worth it, just because of the unusual
The California Supreme Court has agreed to review and resolve a lower (California) court split regarding the standard of review a court should apply in challenges to a government taking of a privately-owned public utility.
In Town of Apple Valley v. Apple Valley Ranchos Water, No. E078348M (Feb. 13, 2025), the California Court
We’re not even going to pretend we know what’s going on that spurred the Supreme Court of India to issue this ruling in Delhi Ag. Marketing Bd. v. Devi (Dead), No. 10757 (Mar. 20, 2025), either in the opinion itself, or especially behind the scenes.
But any judicial opinion that starts off like this
Wondering what happened to that case we posted about last week, where our outfit is representing property owners in a federal court challenge to a Rhode Island town’s efforts to take their land by eminent domain?
Well, here’s the latest. The court just issued this Temporary Restraining Order. Read it for the details.
Before we go further, a disclosure: this is one of ours.
Here’s the Complaint for Violations of Constitutional and Civil Rights, filed yesterday by the Santoro Family in federal court in Rhode Island. This lawsuit challenges, under the Public Use Clause, a RI town’s eminent domaining the family’s land for the ostensible purpose
We had the New Jersey Appellate Division’s opinion in Township of Jackson v. Getzel Bee, LLC, No. A-0590-23 (Jan. 31, 2025) in our queue to digest, when our colleague Joe Grather beat us to the punch with his analysis “Appellate Court Rejects Condemnation Due to Lack of Public Use or Purpose.”
So
Students of the Supreme Court’s infamous-the-day-it-was-decided decision in Kelo v. City of New London know that the legal issue presented and decided by the Court was somewhat narrow, but that the decision had a broad cultural impact such that Susette Kelo’s SCOTUS 5-4 loss was merely a precursor to widespread political
Check out In re Condemnation of Property in Rem (Appeal of Clemens), No. 1101CD23 (Feb. 4, 2025), one from the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court.
The Town exercised eminent domain to take property, stating it was taking the land for public recreational purposes. That can’t be the Town’s true purpose, argued the landowner, because the Town
Register now and plan on joining us on Thursday, February 27, 2025 at the U.C. Berkeley Law School for a one-day conference: “Property Rights and the Roberts Court: 2005-2025.”
Here’s the agenda. Here’s a description of the program:
For much of the past century, property rights were relegated to second-class status compared
