Regulatory takings

“No need to ask, he’s a smooth operator…”

On Tuesday, January 16, 2024, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case we’ve  been following closely because it involves the fundamental limitation on the sovereign power to take private property. In our system, the sovereign indeed has the power to take private property against the

Here is a collection of commentary on the oral arguments in Sheetz v. El Dorado County, heard by the Supreme Court earlier this week. (Our own thoughts here.)

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If you were looking for deep clarity from the Justices about land use law and whether a legislature imposing monetary conditions on property development always gets the free judicial pass of rational basis review in this morning’s oral arguments in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, you may not discover a lot of predictive

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Bismarck in January is looking pretty good.

Here’s what we’re reading today:

  • Christian Britschgi, Court’s Wild Zoning Decision Blocks ‘Montana Miracle’, Reason (Jan. 2, 2024) (“In an eyebrow-raising decision, a Montana judge has halted the implementation of two laws legalizing duplexes and accessory dwelling units on residential land across the state, writing that they’d

Sheetz

Get ready for Sheetz v. El Dorado County, No. 22-1074, the “legislative exactions” case at the Supreme Court. [Disclosure: this is one of our firm’s cases, so we won’t be doing an analysis here. Besides, you already know where we stand on the issue.]

With the final merits brief filed last week (Petitioner’s

As 2023 comes to a close, here are a few of the decisions that we wanted to blog about, but didn’t have the time.

  • Bruce v. Ogden City Corp., No. 22-4114 (10th Cir. Dec. 1, 2023): city demolishing a building that was damaged by fire was not a Lucas taking because the owner

Here are the cases that Michael Berger and I discussed in today’s presentation to the ABA State and Local Government Law Section’s Land Use group. It was good seeing everyone, even virtually:

Screenshot 2023-12-26 at 07-40-26 “to protect all the essential elements of ownership ” Late Nineteenth Century Emergence of the Regulatory Takings Doctrine

A must-read from Professor James Ely, “to protect all the essential elements of ownership:” Late Nineteenth Century Emergence of the Regulatory Takings Doctrine, 13 Brigham-Kanner Prop. Rts. J. ___ (forthcoming 2024).

Professor Ely, who presented this paper at the recent Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference, lays out the case that the regulatory takings

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The place hasn’t changed that much since 1980, has it?

As you know, the legendary Gideon Kanner left us in November. The tributes continue to be published. You’ve no doubt seen our remembrance of Professor K, as well as this one from Southern California Appellate News, this memorial from Loyola Law, our