We’re spending the day at the alma mater, talking alongside some of the luminaries in the field (lawprofs Thomas Mitchell, Henry Smith, John Inafranca, Thomas Merrill, and Pamela Sameulson, among others) about our favorite topics: dirt law and property rights. This is the “Future of Property Rights” Conference that we mentioned not long ago at the University of Hawaii Law School.
Continue Reading 2026 Future of Property Law Conference, University of Hawaii Law School
Be sure to check out the North Carolina Court of Appeals’ recent opinion in LDI Shallotte 197 Holdings, LLC v. North Carolina, No. COA24-443 (Jan. 21, 2026), where the court held the plaintiff’s allegation that a two-year delay in the State issuing a permit adequately pleaded a temporary taking claim. The court reversed the dismissal of the complaint.
Continue Reading NC App: Two-Year Permit Delay Could Be A Temporary Taking
What do they call those phrases that are internally contradictory like “jumbo shrimp” and similar? Here’s an awfully good Dirt Law version (think about that on your next working vacation).
Continue Reading How’s That Again?
Check it out, an in-progress piece from lawprof Molly Brady, “Property v. Guns: The Level-of-Generality Problem in Wolford.”
This delves into the issue we posted about last week, the Second Amendment and the right to exclude, an issue argued recently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Continue Reading New Article (Lawprof Molly Brady): “Property v. Guns: The Level-of-Generality Problem in Wolford”
Check out the transcript of the recent Supreme Court oral arguments in Wolford v. Lopez.
That’s the case challenging the Hawaii statute barring individuals from carrying concealed firearms unless the owner of the premises affirmative consents as a violation of the Second Amendment.
Recall that the Supreme Court has already held that you have
A short one from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that we’ve been meaning to post for a while.
In reVamped LLC v. City of Pipestone, No. 25-1076 (Dec. 23, 2025), the court concluded that the city’s issuance of a closure order to reVamped after the business ended up on the
Check this out, a new cert petition filed yesterday.
As the title of this post notes, this is one of ours. So we won’t be making substantial commentary on it.
But we can say that a sharply-divided Arkansas Supreme Court held that BAS’s Tyler takings claim for the State Lands Commissioner’s failure to return
Hawaii court of appeals holds that elephants (yes, actual elephants) are not “persons” as that term is used in state’s habeas corpus statute.
An animal rights group wanted to spring two elephants from the Honolulu Zoo. Went about as well as you’d expect. This seems to be a thing (check out this Colorado case
In Lifetime Communities, Ltd. v. City of Worthington, No. 25-3048 (Jan. 27, 2026), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the city’s refusal to upzone a vacant parcel from “S-1” (which permits only parks, hospitals, churches, and other similar institutional uses) to a designation that would allow mixed-use development, was not a Penn Central taking.
Continue Reading CA6: Denial Of Rezoning Is Not A Penn Central Taking
Pictured: PLF’s Steve Davis, getting us started. We’re underway today with the academic symposium “Euclid Turns 100: Rethinking an Antiquated Case and Reimagining Euclidean Zoning for the Century Ahead” at the George Mason Law School. Cosponsored by the law school’s Journal of Law, Economics, and Policy, Mercatus Center, and our outfit Pacific Legal Foundation, the symposium is designed to focus the discussion of housing, zoning, and property rights (hot topics in the headlines), and ask the question: has Euclidean zoning outlived its usefulness? And if so, what, if anything, should replace it?
Continue Reading Symposium: “Euclid Turns 100: Rethinking an Antiquated Case and Reimagining Euclidean Zoning for the Century Ahead”