Today, starting at 9:00 a.m. HST, we’ll be live blogging the Hawaii Senate Judicary Committee’s continued hearing on the Governor’s appointment of attorney David Louie as Attorney General.
We live blogged the first hearing last week.
Continue Reading Live Blog Of Hawaii Senate Hearing On Attorney General Appointment (Part II)
In Arkansas Game & Fish Comm’n v. United States, No. 2009-5121 (Mar. 30, 2011), a case in which the Game and Fish Commission asserted that the Corps of Engineers’ deviations from a dam’s operating plan caused increased flooding and resulted in the destruction of trees, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the flooding was temporary and therefore not compensable:
The parties in this case vigorously dispute whether the extent and frequency of flooding satisfied the substantiality requirement and whether it was predictable. However, we need not decide whether the flooding on the Management Area was “sufficiently substantial to justify a takings remedy” or “the predictable result of the government’s action,” Ridge Line, 346 F.3d at 1355, 1356, because the deviations were by their very nature temporary and, therefore, cannot be “inevitably recurring” or constitute the taking of a flowage easement.
Slip op at…
Continue Reading Federal Circuit: Temporary Flooding Causing Permanent Damage Is Not A Taking
In DeCook v. Rochester Int’l Airport Joint Zoning Bd., No. A09-96 (Mar. 30, 2011), the Minnesota Supreme Court held that a $170,000 decrease in market value casued by an airport zoning ordinance was a compensable regulatory taking. Applying the Minnesota Constitution’s takings clause, the court held that when a regulation designed to benefit a “specific public or governmental enterprise” causes a “substantial and measurable decline in market value,” that compensation is due, even if it might not be a taking under the federal Penn Central test.
In 2002, the Airport Joint Zoning Board adopted an ordinance which increased the size of a runway safety zone that included the DeCook property. Most of the DeCook land is outside of “Safety Zone A,” but those regulations “allow fewer land uses” on their property:
On September 18, 2002, the Board enacted Ordinance No. 4, the ordinance at issue in this case. Ordinance…