property rights

An interesting one from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The Modern Sportsman, LLC v. United States, No. 19-449 (June 5, 2026), is the latest in a string of decisions on the “bump stock” issue. You remember the issue: a “bump stock” is a device you can attach to a semi-automatic rifle to make it fire rapidly like a fully-automatic rifle.
Continue Reading CFC: Govt Ordering Destruction Of Bump Stocks Could Be A Physical Taking, But Not Exactly An Exaction

Property rights and dirt law really float your boat? Want to be colleagues with the lawyers who won landmark property rights cases like Knick, Sheetz, Pakdel, Nollan, Cedar Point, Tyler, Shear, and others? See yourself as a guardian of the “guardian of every other right?” Well, here’s a rare chance to join our firm’s Property Rights group.
Continue Reading Want To Be A Guardian Of “The Guardian Of Every Other Right”? Now’s The Time To Join PLF’s Property Rights Courtroom Lawyers

The salient features of New Mexico’s elk management program, including the state’s introduction and efforts to build up the population of elk, the EPLUS (“elk private lands use system”), the mitigation assistance program, and the introduced elk becoming a nuisance, to private property owners are common in these type of things. But like a lot of what we call “wildlife” takings (like this and this, for example), the decision of the New Mexico Court of Appeals in Kiehne v. New Mexico Dep’t of Game and Fish, No. A-1-CA-42309 (June 3, 2026), does not go well for the owners.
Continue Reading Even Though They Have A “Relationship,” Those Elk The State Introduced Are Wildlife Not State Elk, So No Physical Taking When They Invade And Damage Private Property

Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following for what seems like forever (and yes, it is one of ours, so we won’t be commenting). This morning the U.S. Supreme Court without comment denied the City of Marathon, Florida’s cert petition, which asked the Court to review an en banc opinion of the Florida District Court of Appeals which held that the City’s downzoning of Shands Key effected a Lucas taking as a deprivation of economically beneficial uses, notwithstanding that the property could be sold to a third party who could donate it to the city in return for some very watered-down transferable development rights (TDRs).
Continue Reading Good News: Lucas Cert Petition Denied – TDRs Go Only To Just Comp, Not Takings

Check out this recently-filed cert petition, which might be filed under government “keepings” as well as takings. In Greene v. Kansas Dep’t of Revenue, 576 P.3d 320 (Kan. Ct. App. 2025), the Kansas Court of Appeals held that the Department didn’t owe just compensation after it seized some of Greene’s property (the petition and the lower court’s opinion don’t really say what this property is, but we can presume it is some of the “potpourri substance named ‘Diablo’ that the Kansas Board of Pharmacy had deemed a controlled substance” that was at the heart of the tax dispute.
Continue Reading New Cert Petition: Temporarily Keeping Property Seized For Taxes After A Ruling The Taxes Were Not Owed Is A Taking

We like seeing student-authored pieces in our areas of interest, especially those where the subject is eminent domain. Here’s another example. In “Public Use on the Loose: Clarifying the Takings Clause’s Public Use Requirement,” author Megan Hoefs focuses on the pretext argument, arguing that the Public Use Clause imposes a good faith requirement.
Continue Reading New Note On Good Faith In Eminent Domain: “Public Use on the Loose: Clarifying the Takings Clause’s Public Use Requirement,” 53 Pepperdine L. Rev. 729 (Megan Hoefs)

You remember when the Court of Federal Claims denied the government’s motion to dismiss a takings claim and issued a very readable opinion rejecting the argument that oysters planted on submerged land leased from Louisiana are not “private property.” The CFC opinion held that “plaintiffs have all three essential features of the ‘bundle of rights’ commonly characterized as ‘property’ under Louisiana law.” But like all court orders made before entry of final judgment, the CFC’s opinion was interlocutory. Meaning subject to change. And change it did.
Continue Reading Aw Shucks: CAFED Agrees That Oysters Destroyed By Govt Aren’t Private Property

Worth reading: a new (student-authored) piece, Michaela R. Hill, Not Just a Castle in the Sky: A Legal Remedy for Race-Based Takings in Virginia, 67 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1497 (2026). Here’s the summary: “This Note argues that Virginia….”…
Continue Reading New Note: Michaela R. Hill, “Not Just a Castle in the Sky: A Legal Remedy for Race-Based Takings in Virginia, 67 William & Mary L. Rev. 1497 (2026)

Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following for a long time. In Baker v. City of McKinney, No. 25-40396 (May 22, 2026), the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit, in an unsigned per curiam opinion approved of the property owner’s “reelection of remedy” to ask for relief under the Texas Constitution, after the original section 1983 just compensation claim was rejected.
Continue Reading Uno Reverse! CA5 Approves State Takings Remedy After Fifth Amendment Failed