November 2020

This semester, we’re teaching two courses at the William and Mary Law School: the usual Eminent Domain & Property Rights (our regularly-scheduled fall semester course), and Land Use. If we were to try and create a hypothetical for the final exam in either class, we couldn’t do better than the actual fact pattern and arguments presented to the Texas Court of Appeals in City of Dickinson v. Stefan, No. 14-18-00778-CV (Oct. 27, 2020). That case involved a use of property alleged to have been started before the city adopted a zoning code, and claims of vested rights, “grandfathering,” and related.

We won’t recount the entire fact pattern here (we suggest reviewing the entire opinion yourself; it is a decent read), and only note that it covers a range of land use and takings topics, including the aforementioned nonconforming use arguments, exhaustion of admin remedies, and the like. In all…

Continue Reading Your Land Use/Takings Exam Hypo: Tex App Considers Nonconforming Uses, Vested Rights, Zoning, Admin Appeals, And Takings

John Pinder was a bad dude. He “was convicted on eleven felony counts in connection with the murders” of two people. State v. Pinder, 114 P.3d 551 (Utah 2005). His mom and dad were not accused, but their property was seized by the state as part of its investigation of their son, and although some of it was used as evidence against him, some of it wasn’t. 

But either way, that property was never returned:

Over the years, government officials gave several reasons for not returning the property. For example, they said that: (1) they needed the seized property for John Pinder‘s ―ongoing criminal case‖; (2) the seized property belonged to John—not to Robert and Virginia; (3) prosecutors needed the seized property in case ―additional charges [were] brought against John Pinder, based upon investigations . . . on cold cases; and (4) prosecutors needed it in case John Pinder…

Continue Reading Utah Clarifies When A Taking Claim Accrues