December 2019

Yesterday, our friends and colleagues at the Institute for Justice (Diana Simpson and Bob McNamara) welcomed us to their studios to record an episode of the “Short Circuit” podcast.

We talked property, takings, Virginia oysters, the cert petition about Colorado eminent domain abuse, and how the Supreme Court of the Republic of the Philippines would handle cases like Berman v. Parker and Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff. 

Listen in, and subscribe to the podcast (we don’t miss an ep). 

And yes, we really did write up yesterday’s blog post from the Supreme Court steps. Proof:

IMG_20191203_125502 (1)Continue Reading We Join IJ’s “Short Circuit” Podcast To Talk Virginia Oyster Takings, Colorado Wild Eminent Domain Abuse Cert Petition, And Berman International

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We are noted for our ability to find takings and property issues nearly anywhere, and two cases argued today at the Supreme Court — where we had the pole position in the Bar line as the above photo proves — are no exception, even though the first was a case about a tax refund, and the second was about the Superfund statute. 

The tax case was a bit of a stretch, we admit. But there was a brief colloquy about how a taxpayer has property rights to any refund. When we heard that, we sure perked up. There was more to glom onto in the second case on CERCLA (Superfund) where the issue is whether the federal statute allows property owners whose land is contaminated to sue the contaminator under state tort and property law to clean it up. 

As we understand the issues, Atlantic Richfield is such a contaminator…

Continue Reading Shades Of Preseault In Big SCOTUS Superfund Arguments