November 2025

Check this out: a podcast from Free to Choose Media, entitled “Eminent Domain,” published a couple of months ago.

But the description reveals a time capsule:

Recorded in 2003, Dennis McCuistion, former Clinical Professor of Corporate Governance and Executive Director of the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at the University of Texas at Dallas speaks with professors Richard Epstein (University of Chicago), Gideon Kanner (Loyola Law School), Julie Forester (Southern Methodist University), and attorney Kenneth Wright about eminent domain.

Pre-Kelo. That alone makes it worth a listen. Highly recommended.

Continue Reading Free to Choose Podcast: “Eminent Domain”

The caption of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit’s opinion in Purgatory Recreation I, LLC v. United States, No. 24-1241 (Oct. 21, 2025), and the fact that the plaintiff raised a takings claim, should give you some idea where this is heading.

After all, when the defendant in a takings claim is the United States, your Tucker Act/Court of Federal Claims alarm bells should be going off.

That’s certainly accurate where the remedy sought is just compensation, and the amount of compensation sought is substantial. Those claims have been assigned to the CFC, not to district courts and the regional courts of appeals. But what if the plaintiff says it doesn’t want just compensation, but instead asks for a declaratory judgment that “to do X would result in a taking?”

In Purgatory, the plaintiff objected to the federal government’s denial of access across federal land…

Continue Reading CA10: Can’t Use Declaratory Judgment Before Seeking Tucker Act Compensation