Vested rights

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Readers know that the North Carolina Constitution does not contain a “takings” or “just compensation” clause. Does that mean that the government can simply take property, and not have to worry whether the taking is for a public use, and with just compensation? Of course not.

Because we also know that the N.C. Constitution

The owner’s land is a peninsula most of the time, but when Flathead Lake, Montana, rises a few months each year, it needed a bridge to access. So it asked the County “How about a bridge? We will only use it when the water rises.” County said yes, issued a permit.

NIMBY neighbors, however, had

Screenshot 2024-11-20 at 09-16-50 Lake Worth Lagoon - Google Maps
Lake Worth: the “lago” in Mar-a-Lago

You know his name. He’s taken on the City of Riviera Beach twice at the U.S. Supreme Court. And won both times. The houseboat that isn’t a boat. The government can’t shut you out from speaking your mind simply because you irritate them.

That’s right, it’s Fane

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There are some rewards for working late in the 808

Yesterday was the last day of instruction for the Spring 2024 semester at the University of Hawaii Law School. Did these last few months ever go by fast. 

A big thank you to Professor Mark M. Murakami, with whom I guest-lectured at the Old

If there’s a money quote in yesterday’s opinion by the Supreme Court of Nevada which “wholly affirm[ed] a trial court judgment awarding $48 million in just compensation for Las Vegas’s regulatory taking in City of Las Vegas v. 180 Land Co., LLC, No. 24-13605 (Apr. 18, 2024), it might just be this sentence:

Although

This one takes a bit of sifting through, but if you do so, you will eventually savor the arguments. Try and follow this thread.

In 2014, pistachio growers with what seemed to be established rights to pump groundwater for irrigation of their trees and who never had to pay fees or were subject to other

Illinois adopted a statute that tweaked public pensions:

On January 1, 2020, Public Act 101-610 became effective and amended, in pertinent part, portions of the pension code to consolidate all applicable local police and firefighter pension fund assets into two statewide pension investment funds, one for police and the other for firefighters. Pursuant to the

Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following.

In this Order, the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii made permanent its earlier ruling that Honolulu’s ordinance which expanded the minimum rental term to 90 days because it did not account for those owners who were already legally renting their properties

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Starting in January, we’ll be helping our friend and former law partner Mark M. Murakami with the venerated and oh-so-important Land Use course (Law 580) at the University of Hawaii’s Law School.

We’re temporarily stepping into some mighty big slippers (this is Hawaii, so we don’t always wear shoes), as this is the course that

Like a lot of us, Ball State University student Keller Mellowitz didn’t care for “remote” or “Zoom” virtual classrooms which were imposed on us in varying degrees during the Co-19 thing.

But he didn’t take it lying down. Believing that remote learning wasn’t what was promised to him in return for his tuition dollars