Regulatory takings

As you can tell from the date of the opinion, we’ve been meaning to post the South Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling in Braden’s Folly, LLC v. City of Folly Beach, No. 2022-000020 (Apr. 5, 2023) for a while. Something else always intervened, but it remains a decision worth reviewing.

The city adopted an ordinance

Here’s the latest in an issue we’ve been following.

Let’s say the government thinks you have committed a crime (or someone else has). To investigate, it seizes property as evidence or potential evidence. But after things wrap up and it no longer needs the property as evidence, the government doesn’t return it to its owner.

In this Order the Indiana Supreme Court declines to take up the question of when property is taken by regulation. We post it here to note the statement of Justice Slaughter, who agreed that this case isn’t the right vehicle to examine whether Indiana law should adopt a takings test different than the federal

One from the Louisiana Court of Appeal, 3000-3022 St. Claude Avenue, LLC v. City of New Orleans, No. 2022-CA-0813 (June 22, 2023) demonstrating that the standard of judicial review for zoning matters (rational basis) is pretty powerful.

The owner wanted to develop its New Orleans property, but first needed a zoning amendment from residential

In Sterling Hotels,LLC v. McKay, No. 22-1345 (June 22, 2023) the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit considered whether a hotel could sue a state elevator inspector who barred the hotel from operating its elevators for reasons the state’s Elevator Safety Board had not approved. As a result, the hotel couldn’t rent

Thanks to lawprof Josh Blackman for the reminder that our un-favorite case, Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104 (1978), turned 44 today.

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If you know, you know.

Time has not treated the opinion well. Practitioners, judges, and legal scholars across the spectrum have called the three-factor Penn Central test

Here’s the cert petition, filed last week, in a case we’ve posted about. See here (Ninth Circuit arguments) and here (en banc petition).

The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a takings claim because (it held) the claim isn’t ripe. The government hasn’t made up its mind, and just might allow the owners to

Screenshot 2023-06-16 at 07-52-47 How Did Property Rights Fare at the Supreme Court What Happened in the 2022 Term and What's Next ALI CLE

On Wednesday, August 9, 2023 at 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. (Eastern Time), please join us for ALI-CLE’s web program, “How Did Property Rights Fare at the Supreme Court? What Happened in the 2022 Term and What’s Next.”

Here’s the course description:

This has been a blockbuster U.S. Supreme Court term for property law

Here’s what we’re reading this Tuesday:

Missed our law firm colleagues Jeff McCoy, Damien Schiff, and Christina Martin when they were live, talking about their SCOTUS wins in Wilkins v. United States (is the statute of limitations in federal Quiet Title Act cases a jurisdictional bar?), Sackett v. E.P.A. (scope of Clean Water Act wetlands jurisdiction), and Tyler v. Hennepin County