This opinion from the Maryland Court of Appeals may be too land-usey for you takings mavens, but it starts off with an attention-getter:
Few cases inflame such deep passions as a dispute involving individual property rights. The belief that fundamental concepts of liberty entailed strong property rights informed and influenced the Founders as they undertook the epochal task of drafting our Constitution. See Sharon A. Rose, Kelo v. City of New London: A Perspective on Economic Freedoms, 40 U.C. Davis L. Rev, 1997, 2002 (2007). Infringers of these cherished rights should beware for “nothing is better calculated to arouse the evil passions of men than a wanton and unredressed invasion of their . . . property rights.” Cameron v. Chi., Milwaukee & St. Paul Ry. Co., 65 N.W. 652, 655 (Minn. 1896).Appellant, Marquis McClure, seeks our review of the decision of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County in a land use case.
McClure v. Montgomery Cnty Planning Bd of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Comm'n, No. 1031 (Dec. 2, 2014), slip op. at 1.
Despite this strong beginning, however, the court ended up on a sour note for the property owner, concluding that the Planning Board did not err when it found that the property was encumbered by a forest conservation easement, and enforced that easement.
We scanned the remaining 21 pages of the opinion for the "deep passions" which the court referred to in its opening sentence, but didn't find much beyond the dry details of planning and land use law that we usually associate with these type of decisions. But there was this one turn of the phrase the court employed that made us crack a smile:
It is this fact of recordation that also persuades us that Mr. McClure received both actual and constructive notice of the FCE. Although Mr. McClure wishes to play the ostrich and secrete away his head from the signatures on his deed and contract of sale, he will find no solace in the sands.Slip op. at 13.
