Here’s the Reply Brief in a case which we’ve been following (and in which we filed this amici brief). This is the one in which landowners are challenging the district court’s issuance of an injunction in a Natural Gas Act taking which allow a private condemnor to obtain immediate possession of the land being
New Article: Imperfect Takings
A law journal article worth reading (short, not too many distracting footnotes) on takings theory.
In Imperfect Takings, 46 Fordham Urban Law Journal 130 (2019), Professor Shai Stern writes about what he calls the “three safeguards” in eminent domain (due process, public use, and mandatory compensation), and how to evaluate the legality of takings…
W Va: Decision To Take “Uneconomic Remnant” Lies Solely With Agency (Not The Owner, Not The Court)
As part of a federally-funded highway project, the WV DOT took a portion of parcels belonging to several property owners. The partial takings ended up landlocking one tract. So the DOT proposed building an access road to that parcel. The owners didn’t think this was the best idea, because “maintaining a road in that area…
Arizona: Eminent Domain Isn’t Voluntary (Even A “Friendly” Condemnation)
The Arizona Corporations Commission has authority to regulate the sale, lease, assigning, mortgage of a public utility’s assets, including when those assets are “otherwise dispose[d] of.” These transactions need the Commission’s approval.
The city intended to exercise eminent domain to take the assets of a water utility. This sure looked like a “friendly” condemnation: the…
The “2015 Supreme Court case that nearly leveled Fresno” – The Raisin Industry, Post-Horne
We’re not quite sure what to make of this story (“The Raisin Situation“) in the New York Times, about the situation in Fresno, California, after the Horne case. You remember that one, don’t you? All about whether USDA’s seizure of raisins in order to maintain the price was a taking.
The piece…
Indiana’s Right To Farm Act Isn’t A Taking
Nothing really can be done: the harsh reality is that CAFO’s (concentrated animal feeding operations) stink. But many state legislatures have concluded that farming and ranching are so important that the consequences (“externalities”) that naturally occur have to be accepted.
Right to Farm Acts, Indiana’s included, generally deprive neighboring property owners of their…
California Inverse Condemnation And Wildfires: The Comic
Thanks to Professor Michael Wara’s Twitter feed, here is what might possibly be the first and only example of a comic strip devoted to inverse condemnation.
Yes, it is on an advocacy site (the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245), and it doesn’t really go into the details of the doctrine…
BIO In “Take-First-Pay-Later” Natural Gas Act Condemnation
Here’s the Brief in Opposition, in Like v. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co., LLC, No. 18-1206 (Apr. 17, 2019), the case which we’ve been following (and in which we filed this amici brief).
This is the case in which landowners are challenging the district court’s issuance of an injunction in a Natural…
Links And Materials From Today’s Land Use Institute Sessions, Baltimore
Here are the links from today’s two sessions (the first, federal water issues impacting local land use; the second, Bringing and Defending a Takings Case):
- Maui groundwater CWA case
- the public trust along the Indiana shoreline
- tribal fishing rights and … highway culverts?
- WOTUS: son, they’re all my helicopters!
- Auer deference on the chopping
…
New SCOTUS Amici Brief In Pipeline Case: Courts Keep Using “Order of Condemnation.” We Do Not Think It Means What They Think It Means
Here’s the amici brief of the Owners’ Counsel of AmericaNew Jersey, Virginia, and West Virginia property owners; Cato Institute, and NFIB Small Business Legal Center which urges the Supreme Court to grant cert in a case we’ve been following for a while.
As regular readers understand, several federal courts of appeals …

