Congratulations to friend and colleague Thor Hearne for his being named as one the Top 50 Litigation Trailblazers by the National Law Journal. Or should we say Rails-to-Trails-Blazer?
Readers of the blog are familiar with his guest posts (see also this one), our coverage of his work, and his own Federal Takings blog, which covers his focus, recovering compensation for property owners for rails-to-trails takings in the Court of Federal Claims, the Federal Circuit, and the Supreme Court.
More on the kudos for Thor here. Here's the complete write up from NLJ:
Pioneer Spirit: Thor Hearne’s first case on behalf of a landholder was when his client, a little village, had some of its property taken by the federal government under the Trails System Act. “We litigated and got into the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, where few people practice.” From there, his practice began to grow nationwide, fighting for landholders, small businesses and farmers against the government’s right to take their property and making sure they are compensated properly when it does.Trails Blazed: The Court of Federal Claims has nationwide jurisdiction and appeals go only to the Federal Circuit, so “it’s a good place to build a body of jurisprudence.” One such case was Ladd vs. U.S., which centered around an 80-mile corridor near the Mexican border. The Surface Transportation Board built a recreational trail on the land of a number of ranchers, who were no longer allowed to fence and maintain it. “This is now one of the areas where they are having the most problems, with a lot of drug smuggling.” Hearne represented the landowners in an attempt to recover for the reduced value of their homes, some of which were less than 100 feet away. “We won on appeal based largely on the theory that when a federal government passes a regulation that excludes people from their land, then it’s taking that land.”Future Explorations: Hearne is frustrated that the federal government, with its unlimited resources, chooses fights and argues every point. “Even when they have lost repeatedly, they still make the exact same arguments in trial court.” He is hopeful that the DOJ will rethink this approach. “Let’s rightly compensate rather than arguing these laws at taxpayer expense and tying up the courts.”We expect Thor and his Arent Fox team to continue, so stay tuned.
