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The New York Times‘ Greenwire blog posts Property Rights Groups Assemble Support in Regulatory Takings Case, about amici support in Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep’t of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009).

Property rights groups are lining up in support of private waterfront landowners in Florida at the center of a case that the Supreme Court will hear later this year.

Twelve groups, including the National Association of Home Builders and the Cato Institute, have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida, which turns on whether Florida’s Supreme Court violated the Constitution’s regulatory takings clause when it upheld a plan to create a state-owned public beach between private waterfront land and the Gulf of Mexico.

. . .

Stop the Beach Renourishment will be the first taking case to come before Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices…

Continue Reading NY Times On Property Owner Amici In Beachfront Takings Case

Confirming that Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep’t of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009) is shaping up to be one of the most interesting cases in the Supreme Court’s term, even more amici briefs are coming in supporting the petitioner/property owners.

In an earlier post, we noted that eight briefs have been filed, and now are posting four more:

Continue Reading Even More Amici Supporting The Property Owners In Beach Takings Case

More briefs have been filed in support of the Petitioner/property owner in Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep’t of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009).

We posted the brief of the Cato Institute, Pacific Legal Foundation and NFIB here.

The petitioner’s merits brief is posted here.  More information on the case on our resource page.Continue Reading Amici Briefs Supporting The Property Owners In Beach Takings Case

We’ve been loosely following the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotamayor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and reading selected testimony and commentary on the subject. We say “loosely” since confirmation hearings are more political theater and an opportunity for each side to educate the public about its vision of judicial review and constitutional law, than about actually vetting the nominee.

Here’s a sampling, followed by some thoughts:

  • She’s Lying by Paul Campos – “Even some liberals are frustrated by Sonia Sotomayor’s carefully plotted answers this week. The Daily Beast’s Paul Campos on how she’s denying the truth about our legal system.”
  • Written testimony of Lawprof Ilya Somin (Geo. Mason University) – “As President  Barack Obama has written, ‘[o]ur Constitution places the ownership of private property at the very heart of our system of liberty.’ The protection of property rights was one of

…
Continue Reading Do Judges “Make” Law? The Sotomayor Nomination And The Beachfront Takings Case

The Senate’s hearings on Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court begin today. Here’s our summary of cases in which she was involved as a circuit and district judge on the issue.

If confirmed, we may find out her thinking about regulatory takings very soon, because in its next Term, the Court will be reviewing Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep’t of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009), a case about the taking of littoral (beachfront) land in Florida. Our summary of the issues in that case is here.

If she is elevated to the Court, this case could prove especially interesting because her one unabashedly pro-property owner decision as a Second Circuit judge focused on procedural due process. In Brody v. Village of Port Chester, 434 F.3d 121 (2d Cir. 2005), the court held…

Continue Reading Sotomayor On Takings And Property Rights Issues

I don’t know of anyone who looks forward to reading 61-page single-spaced opinions. I know I sure don’t. But that’s the nature of the beast in decisions after a bench trial by trial courts, which are tasked with processing the facts and applying the law after hearing days, weeks, or months of evidence and argument. And when a long opinion is presented straightforwardly and the detail provided is essential to the decision, the pain is considerably lessened.

Such is the case with the opinion of the Court of Federal Claims in Arkansas Fish and Game Comm’n v. United States, No. 05-381L (July 1, 2009).

The Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (“Commission”) owns approximately 23,000 acres of land along the Black River in northeastern Arkansas that it manages as the Dave Donaldson Black River Wildlife Management Area (“Management Area”). The Commission in essence claims that during the years 1993-2000 the…

Continue Reading Court Of Federal Claims: Feds Liable For $5.8M Inverse Condemnation For Flooding

In What’s At Stake in Stop the Beach Renourishment, Lawprof D. Benjamin Barros posts a comprehensive summary of “judicial takings” case accepted for review by the US Supreme Court, Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep’t of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009). Raises several interesting points and worth a read.Continue Reading PropertyProf’s Summary Of The SCOTUS Beachfront Takings Case

The U.S. Supreme Court last week agreed to review the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Walton County v. Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc.,998 So.2d 1102 (Fla. Sep. 29, 2008), which heldthat a state statute prohibiting “beach renourishment” without apermit did not effect a taking of littoral (beachfront) property, eventhough it altered the long-standing rights of the owners to accretionon their land and direct access to the ocean. See Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep’t of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009). More background on the case at our resource page.

The Court accepted three questions for review, and the cert petitionrelied on two rather notorious cases with Hawaii origins to support theconclusion that a decision by a state court which unexpectedly changesestablished state common law rules of property is a compensable taking.See Pet. at 31-32 (citing Robinson v. Ariyoshi…

Continue Reading On Judicial Takings, And The Hawaii Water Rights Backstory In Stop The Beach Renourishment

It looks like the federal government will likely seek U.S. Supreme Court review of Casitas Municipal Water District v. United States, 543 F.3d 1276 (Fed. Cir. 2008). As noted here, the SG’s office has sought and received two extensions of time and the cert petition is now due by July 17, 2009.

In Casitas, the Federal Circuit held that contractual waterrights were taken when the federal government required the landowner toconstruct a fish ladder and divert water in order to protect endangeredsteelhead trout. The court held that the requirement resulted in aphysical diversion of water for public use, and that “Casitas willnever, at the end of any period of time, be able to get the waterback. The character of the government action was a physical diversionfor public use — the protection of an endangered species.” The Federal Circuit’s opinion is posted here, and the court’s denial…

Continue Reading Feds Likely To Seek Cert In Casitas (Water Rights Taking Case)

Head’s up to all members of the ABA’s Section of State and Local Government Law‘s Condemnation Law Committee: you should have received an email about next week’s conference call (Thursday, June 25, 2 p.m. EDT) to discuss recent developments and items of interest, including:

If you are a section member and did not get the notification email with call-in information, send me an email and I will forward it to you.Continue Reading ABA Condemnation Law Committee Conference Call On Beach Takings Case And Sotomayor Nomination