Do you have "giver's block" about an appropriate present this holiday season for the dirt lawyer in your orbit? Well fear not, here are our modest suggestions for stocking stuffers.
Timothy Sandefur and Christina Sandefur, Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st Century America (2d ed. 2016).
"Published in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Kelo v. New London, Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st Century America made a powerful contribution to the firestorm of interest in protecting property rights. Now in its second edition, Cornerstone of Liberty has been fully updated by authors Timothy and Christina Sandefur, and examines how dozens of new developments in courtrooms and legislatures across the country have shifted the landscape of private property rights since 2005. Through a combination of real-life stories and solid legal analysis, the authors explain how key issues like eminent domain, civil asset forfeiture, and environmental protection regulations have evolved and how they should be reformed. Brand new topics, such as the sharing economy and the Koontz case, are popular, timely, and addressed by the authors in this revised edition. This book shows why the right to ownership is one of the most essential of human rights, how that right is protected in the U.S. Constitution, and how ordinary property owners can help rein in government violations of private property rights."
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Ilya Somin, The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (2015).
We recommended this one last year, and now that it is available in softcover, there's no excuse not to gift it if you haven't already.
"By dint of his uncommon thoroughness, Somin has become the leading and most persuasive critic of the Supreme Court’s ill-fated Kelo decision. His close examination of the case’s factual backdrop offers chilling confirmation of his central thesis: weak constitutional protection of property rights opens the door to political intrigue that exacts its greatest toll on the poor and vulnerable in society. Somin’s gripping account confirms your worst fears about big government." - Richard Epstein.
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Erwin G. Gudde, California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names (4th ed. 2010).
A fascinating title, equally good for lovers of geography and etymology. Even non-Californians will appreciate this one, for their next trip west.
"What’s in a name? Sometimes rich history and intriguing stories. The 40th-anniversary edition of California Place Names animates many local geographic names we take for granted. Like Golden Gate, named Chrysopylae (Greek for golden gate) in 1846 by explorer John C. Fremont, who envisioned its future commercial importance. Or Menlo Park, named after the ranches of two brothers-in-law from Menlough, Ireland, whose arched entrance gate inscribed “Menlo Park” stood from 1854 until a wayward car destroyed it in 1922. Or Contra Costa County, from the Spanish term referring to the “coast opposite” San Francisco. In 1853, that name became less appropriate when most of the county’s coastal section was incorporated into Alameda County. The book is also a fun companion for trips to other parts of the state. In the late 1800s, residents of Groveland (near Yosemite) chose that peaceful name to replace the original, Garrote, which commemorated a hanging in their town." - Sue Rosenthal, Bay Nature.
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Charles Nordhoff, Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands (1874).
Originally published by Charles Nordhoff in the nineteenth century when California, Oregon, and Hawaii were still beyond the frontier, this travelogue can be Victorian-era stuffy, but that's part of its charm. It is also remarkably and somewhat surprisingly critical of the way things were in those days.
A snapshot in time about places you may know well.
"Poi is a paste made of the tuberous root of the kalo (Colocasia antiquorum, var. esculenta, Schott.). More than thirty varieties of kalo are cultivated on the Hawaiian Islands, most of them requiring a marshy soil, but a few will grow in the dry earth of the mountains. The tubers of all the kinds are acrid, except one, which is so mild that it may be eaten raw. After it is freed from acridity by baking, the kalo is pounded until reduced to a kind of paste which is eaten cold, under the name of poi. It is the principal food of the natives, with whom it takes t ;the flowers (spathe and spadix), cooked in the leaves of the cordyline (C. terminalis, H.B.K.), form a most delicious dish. It is not only as poi that the tubers are eaten; they are sliced and fried like potatoes, or baked whole upon hot stones. It is in this last form that I have eaten them in my expeditions. A tuber which I carried in my pocket has often been my only provision for the day.
If you really want to splurge, get an original edition.
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Steven Lubet, Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp (2004).
Not specifically for dirt lawyers, but law dogs will still appreciate this account of the gunfight at the OK Corral and its surprisingly legal foundations and aftermath.
"In Murder in Tombstone, Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University, concentrates on the immediate legal proceedings after the gunfight. After a coroner’s inquest proved inconclusive, Ike Clanton, one of the gunfight’s instigators who, unarmed, fled shortly after the shooting started, filed first-degree murder charges against the Earps and Holliday. What followed over the next month was a legal courtroom thriller–call it Perry Mason Meets Gunsmoke. “We tell ourselves that trials are about truth,” Lubet writes, “but they are also very much about clarity. The most convincing case wins, not necessarily the truer one.”" - Historynet.com.
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Rebecca Solnit, Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (2010).
Dirt lawyers love maps, and this book is a collection of maps that map out things other than pure geography and political boundaries.
"What makes a place? Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit’s brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area. Aided by artists, writers, cartographers, and twenty-two gorgeous color maps, each of which illuminates the city and its surroundings as experienced by different inhabitants, Solnit takes us on a tour that will forever change the way we think about place. She explores the area thematically—connecting, for example, Eadweard Muybridge’s foundation of motion-picture technology with Alfred Hitchcock’s filming of Vertigo. Across an urban grid of just seven by seven miles, she finds seemingly unlimited landmarks and treasures—butterfly habitats, queer sites, murders, World War II shipyards, blues clubs, Zen Buddhist centers. She roams the political terrain, both progressive and conservative, and details the cultural geographies of the Mission District, the culture wars of the Fillmore, the South of Market world being devoured by redevelopment, and much, much more. Breathtakingly original, this atlas of the imagination invites us to search out the layers of San Francisco that carry meaning for us—or to discover our own infinite city, be it Cleveland, Toulouse, or Shanghai."
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Norman E. Matteoni, Prairie Man: The Struggle between Sitting Bull and Indian Agent James McLaughlin (2016).
If the name of this author sounds familiar, it should be: Norm Matteoni is one of the deans of the California eminent domain bar, and author of the celebrated practice manual Condemnation Practice in California. Prairie Man isn't about condemnation or law, but the history of the American West.
"One week after the infamous June 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn, when news of the defeat of General George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry troops reached the American public, Sitting Bull became the most wanted hostile Indian in America. He had resisted the United States’ intrusions into Lakota prairie land for years, refused to sign treaties, and called for a gathering of tribes at Little Big Horn. He epitomized resistance.
Sitting Bull’s role at Little Big Horn has been the subject of hundreds of historical works, but while Sitting Bull was in fact present, he did not engage in the battle. The conflict with Custer was a benchmark to the subsequent events. There are other battles than those of war, and the conflict between Sitting Bull and Indian Agent James McLaughlin was one of those battles. Theirs was a fight over the hearts and minds of the Lakota. U.S. Government policy toward Native Americans after Little Big Horn was to give them a makeover as Americans after finally and firmly displacing them from their lands. They were to be reconstituted as Christian, civilized and made farmers. Sitting Bull, when forced to accept reservation life, understood who was in control, but his view of reservation life was very different from that of the Indian Bureau and its agents. His people’s birth right was their native heritage and culture. Although redrawn by the Government, he believed that the prairie land still held a special meaning of place for the Lakota. Those in power dictated a contrary view – with the closing of the frontier, the Indian was challenged to accept the white road or vanish, in the case of the Lakota, that position was given personification in the form of Agent James McLaughlin. This book explores the story within their conflict and offers new perspectives and insights."
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We're not all books. Here's one that every condemnation lawyer should love: wines from Oregon's Eminent Domaine vintner. (Our thanks to colleague Joe Currie for the heads up on this one.)
"The name, Eminent Domaine, is a reflection of our experience with the legal term, eminent domain, our dedication to the Oregon wine industry and our love of the wines produced in our region.In 2002 the City of Portland cited eminent domain as reason for claiming an office building we owned downtown. We began negotiations, as we agreed with the intent of the law, which states that the property would be used for the public good in exchange for a price based on fair market value. However, when both qualifiers came into question, a lengthy legal process ensued. Despite having a more favorable outcome from arbitration, the compensation was low and the property was used for undisclosed purposes.
Having been brought up on a small farm in Hillsboro Oregon, Jeff Meader always wanted to go back to the land. Already entrenched in Oregon’s wine industry and looking to the future, it was a natural progression to re-invest in a small piece of land in the coveted Ribbon Ridge AVA. In 2009, we set about planting the 7-acre parcel with selected Pinot Noir clones and harvested our first estate fruit in 2011."
