Here’s what’s on our radar screen today: Anthony Flint, How Zoning Won (Bloomberg) (“In 1926, the Supreme Court’s Euclid decision enshrined zoning in US cities. On its 100th anniversary, academics gathered to reflect on the landmark ruling’s mixed legacy.”)
Continue Reading Today’s Dirt Law Round-Up: Zoning, Public Use, and Penn Central History
Here are a three upcoming state-based eminent domain conferences, brought to you by CLE International: California, Texas, and Virginia.
Continue Reading Register Now For State Eminent Domain Conferences (California, Texas, Virginia)
You know the drill: DOT takes property and pays compensation for that as part of the project. But the project also resulted in elimination of what was the “shortest indirect access route” to the subject property from the public road, for which the DOT did not pay compensation. Question: is the owner who loses such access entitled to compensation?
Continue Reading SD: Closure Of Intersection And Loss Of Access Is Not Compensable Special Injury
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
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?
The view from the podium
That’s right. More than 300 of the nation’s best eminent domain lawyers, judges, appraisers, right-of-way agents, scholars, and other industry professionals are in Savannah for the next two and a half days for what is now known as the American Law Institute (“ALI” alone, no longer with the “-CLE” addition)
We were all set to offer our deep thoughts about the recently-published opinion of the California Court of Appeal in Mendocino Railway v. Meyer, No. A168497 (Jam. 7, 2026), which held that the Skunk Train (a “train to nowhere” that carries tourists up in California’s redwood country) is a “common carrier” with the power
A reminder: there’s still time to join us for the upcoming American Law Institute-CLE Eminent Domain & Land Valuation Litigation Conference in Savannah.
Now in its 43rd year, this flagship gathering remains the undisputed national hub for practitioners, academics, appraisers, and anyone else who lives and breathes property and eminent domain law. We will
No better way to start 2026 than to check out the Yale Journal of Regulation‘s (the self-labeled “Nation’s Top-Ranked Administrative and Corporate Law Journal”), for its symposium on the twentieth anniversary of the Kelo case.
Featuring authors who readers of this blog will recognize (all the big names), the symposium features articles you
We start off 2026 with some good news: after a short hiatus (explained in the episode), Bobby Debelak’s Eminent Domain Podcast is back with Episode 150: “Year in Review and ALI-CLE Preview.”
And we get to join him!
Here’s how Bobby describes the episode:
Bobby returns to the podcast after a brief