The Wisconsin Court of Appeals’ decision in Somers USA, LLC v. Wisconsin Dep’t of Transportation, No. 2014AP1092 (Mar. 25, 2015), is the second case we’re posting today that has us asking — just what was the government thinking?
This kerfuffle resulted from the DOT trying to take advantage of Somers’ scrivener’s error, made when
Here’s one with a somewhat unusual twist: the condemnee objecting to the taking by a public utility district was the state.
In Public Utility Dist. No. 1 of Okanogan Cnty. v. State of Washington, No. 88949-0 (Jan. 29, 2015), the Washington Supreme Court affirmed the power of the county utility district to take an
Check this out: Vermont lawprof John Echeverria has launched a blog about “Takings Litigation.” Which, given the predilections of the author (organizer of the anti-takings conference, and recently presented with the Koontz Catatonia Award), probably should be called “Takings Defense” or the “No Takings Blog,” but who are we to say?
You remember Battle for Brooklyn, the documentary which chronicles the eminent domain fight over New York’s Atlantic Yards project? (Read our review of the film here to refresh your recollection.)
Well here’s the latest chapter. Or perhaps “epilogue” is more appropriate, because the former property owners have long since been evicted, the homes have
As we predicted it would after oral argument, today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the property owner’s favor in Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, No.12-1173 (Mar. 10, 2014). Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the entire Court less Justice Sotomayor, who filed a solo dissent. SCOUTSblog posts a summary of
Since this is the season for self-congratulatory industry awards, we can’t overlook one of our industry’s highest honors, the Zoning and Planning Law Report Land Use Decision Awards (aka the “ZiPLeRs”). For those of you who do not subscribe to the Zoning and Planning Law Report, the “strangest, or at least more dramatic” land use
Not only did the State win the reapportionment legal case in which it successfully argued that military personnel and their families who reside in Hawaii are not “permanent residents” and thus may be treated as outlanders and ignored for state reapportionment purposes [we represented the plaintiffs who challenged that scheme], but with the proposed defense
I have a long-running and good-natured contest with my Owners’ Counsel and ABA colleague Dwight Merriam about who gets items of interest “fastest with the mostest.” More than a few times has he sent me items, only to find out that we’ve already posted on the subject, or there is a post in the
We’ve been following the (mostly fruitless) efforts of a group called the “Save the Plastic Bag Coalition,” an association of plastic bag manufacturers and distributors, to push back against the growing tide of municipalities that have banned or otherwise highly regulated the use of bags at grocery stores and elsewhere. Despite one success