Here's what we're reading today:
- The latest in that 15-minute jury verdict in a federal court regulatory takings case: the owner is now seeking attorneys' fees. Here's the motion. More on the case here ("State loses land-use lawsuit and must pay $1").
- "A Dangerous Development in Cape Town" (via City Journal) - "When the South African parliament passed a motion, by 241 votes to 83, to change the nation’s constitution to allow white-owned land to be expropriated without compensation, the Guardian, Britain’s equivalent of the Washington Post, was coy about reporting it. Even now, it has not mentioned the measure on its website, except indirectly."
- David Crosby (of the law firm Crosby, Stills & Nash (and sometimes Young)) writes "Don't bring back redevelopment to California" in the San Francisco Chronicle - "When I learned that Kelo’s court fight would be turned into a movie, my son, James Raymond, and I offered to write a song for the film. “Home Free” expresses what every American should feel when they cross their threshold; we are in a place where each of us is shielded from the cares of the world. "
- Lawprof Molly Brady writes about "The Forgotten History of Metes and Bounds" in a forthcoming edition of the Yale Law Journal - "Using new archival research from the American colonial period, this Article reconstructs the forgotten history of metes and bounds within recording practice. Importantly, the benefits of metes and bounds were greater—and the associated costs lower—than ahistorical examination of these records would indicate."
- "Grow grass in your yard, or else," orders a Missouri court. "Blooming Ridiculous: Federal Judge Rules Property Rights Not 'Fundamental,' Okays Twenty-Year Prison Sentences for Growing Harmless Flowers" (via the Freedom Center of Missouri) - According to the court's order, "Here, Plaintiffs have failed to identify a fundamental right that is restricted by the Turf Grass Ordinance. In their briefing, Plaintiffs characterize the allegedly fundamental right as a property right, the right to use private property in a harmless, lawful manner of the owner's choosing, and the owner's right to exclude unwanted persons and things from private property. However, these descriptions are too general and not in accord with the Supreme Court's 'tradition of carefully formulating the interest at stake in substantive-due-process-cases.' Indeed, if the Court were to recognize such broad property rights as fundamental, many, if not all, zoning laws would become subject to heightened judicial scrutiny."
