Rent Control

Here’s what we’re reading today:

Screenshot 2024-03-26 at 09-12-12 Meme Generator - Imgflip

Check this out: lawprof Ilya Somin has posted “Squatters’ Rights Laws Violate the Takings Clause” at Volokh.

His thesis is just as the title suggests, arguing that state statutes that treat trespassers as tenants are government-authorized physical occupations, and thus are takings:

Ideally, state and local governments should make it easy for property

Be sure to check out this interview (“Rent Control Is a ‘New York Tragedy’“) on Hamodia, with law Professor Richard Epstein.

As you might expect, the interview is full of insights and bon mots. There’s even a reference to the judicial takings case, Stop the Beach Renourishment. And a lot of things

ALI-CLE brochure cover page

When it comes to the longstanding ALI-CLE American Law Institute-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation Conferences, we’re always ready to go. You know that. But this year’s version — the 41st — was buzzing like no other in recent memory.

Maybe it was the New Orleans venue with its atmo, food, and music for

2024 Gifford Lecture Carol N. Brown Professor of Law flyer

Join us and our Land Use class, in-person on the campus of the University of Hawaii Law School (or online via Zoom, where it will be livestreamed), as Richmond Law lawprof Carol Brown delivers the 2024 Distinguished Gifford Lecture in Real Property, on March 24, 2024, at 4:40 p.m. Hawaii Time in the Cades

Yesterday, the other shoe dropped. In this order the U.S. Supreme Court denied review to a case that we’ve long been following, which challenged aspects of New York’s draconian rent control laws as a taking, 74 Pinehurst v. New York.

We say the “other shoe” because ever since the Court denied review months

Check out the U.S. Court of Appeals’ opinion in Peace Ranch, LLC v. Bonta, No. 22-16063 (Feb. 13, 2024), where the court concluded that the owner of a mobilehome park could bring a federal court challenge to a California statute, even before the state applied the statute and enforced it.

There’s a mobilehome park

Screenshot 2024-02-05 at 12-23-56 Missed Opportunities in State Takings Challenges to Pandemic-Era Restrictions

Thank you to the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School’s State Court Report (#statecourtreport) for publishing our piece “Missed Opportunities in State Takings Challenges to Pandemic-Era Restrictions.” The title gives a hint about what this is about: how state and local government’s reaction to Co-19 spurred challenges not only under the U.S.