Municipal & Local Govt law

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Here’s the cert petition, filed last week, in a case we’ve posted about. See here (Ninth Circuit arguments) and here (en banc petition).

The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a takings claim because (it held) the claim isn’t ripe. The government hasn’t made up its mind, and just might allow the owners to make some use of their residentially-zoned land (even though the property is also subject to an overlay zone that expressly prohibits residential development). More background here. 

This is one of ours, so we’re not going to be saying too much more about it. The petition also lays out the situation.

Here are the Questions Presented:

Randy Ralston and Linda Mendiola (Ralstons) wish to build a retirement home on their residentially-zoned land in San Mateo County, California. However, their property sits entirely within an overlay zone, the Montecito Riparian Corridor (Corridor), which categorically bans residential…

Continue Reading New Takings Ripeness Cert Petition (Ours): Knowing The Permissible Uses “to a reasonable degree of certainty” Is All You Need For A Claim To Be Ripe

Screenshot 2023-06-16 at 07-52-47 How Did Property Rights Fare at the Supreme Court What Happened in the 2022 Term and What's Next ALI CLE

On Wednesday, August 9, 2023 at 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. (Eastern Time), please join us for ALI-CLE’s web program, “How Did Property Rights Fare at the Supreme Court? What Happened in the 2022 Term and What’s Next.”

Here’s the course description:

This has been a blockbuster U.S. Supreme Court term for property law, with the Court deciding three major property cases: Tyler v. Hennepin County (government’s keeping the excess value when seizing and selling a home to satisfy a property tax debt is a taking), Wilkins v. United States (is the federal Quiet Title Act’s statute of limitations a jurisdictional bar?), and Sackett v. EPA (the scope of Clean Water Act wetlands jurisdiction). To gain a better understanding these opinions, the current state of takings and property law, and what these cases mean for your practice, join a distinguished panel of experts for this one-hour webcast. The faculty will…

Continue Reading Join Us August 9, 2023: ALI-CLE’s “How Did Property Rights Fare at the Supreme Court? What Happened in the 2022 Term and What’s Next”

Here’s what we’re reading this Tuesday:

Worth checking Continue Reading Tuesday Round-Up: Sackett, Tyler, Defending Zoning, Canada Property Rights … And More

Missed our law firm colleagues Jeff McCoy, Damien Schiff, and Christina Martin when they were live, talking about their SCOTUS wins in Wilkins v. United States (is the statute of limitations in federal Quiet Title Act cases a jurisdictional bar?), Sackett v. E.P.A. (scope of Clean Water Act wetlands jurisdiction), and Tyler v. Hennepin County (government’s keeping the excess value when seizing and selling a home to satisfy a property tax debt is a taking)?

We recorded it, so you can watch and listen at your leisure.

This is more than just a victory lap, the advocates offer their thoughts on the implications of the wins, and what might be next.

Bon appétit.Continue Reading ICYMI: “Property Rights Hat-Trick: Breaking Down PLF’s Supreme Court Victories” (vid)

Check out this now-under-consideration Petition for Review, which asks the California Supreme Court to take up a case involving Murderers Creek, in Pleasant Hill, California. (Now there’s a jarring juxtaposition for you.)

The case started off as a “routine inverse condemnation case.” Pet. at 2. When Murderers Creek flooded, it damaged the plaintiffs’ land. The County, the plaintiffs allege, didn’t maintain a 40-year old concrete spillway which is part of a drainage system the County required a private developer to install in the 1970s as a condition of subdivision. The County never actually took over the drainage system, but it did accept the dedication “for recording only.”

The plaintiffs said this should have been enough to establish a claim for inverse against the County: it has been a longstanding rule in California that drainage infrastructure that diverts surface waters onto private property triggers inverse liability even if privately…

Continue Reading California Supreme Court Reviewing The Murderer’s Creek Inverse Case

In Livingood v. City of Des Moines, No. 22-0586 (June 9, 2023), the Iowa Supreme Court held that the city’s use of the Iowa’s process by which the government can satisfy all or part of a taxpayer’s debt to a public agency by grabbing someone’s tax refund. In a nutshell, after trying to collect the debt by more conventional means:

the income offset program allows the department of administrative services to collect debts for public agencies by offsetting the debts against any income tax refund owed to a taxpayer. The city entered into a memorandum of understanding with the department of administrative services to use the income offset program.

Slip op. at 4-5.

The debt owed in Livingood is for traffic violations caught on camera.

Is it a taking under the Iowa Constitution to not give the taxpayer/cam-violator the full amount of tax refund?

No. First, the court held…

Continue Reading Iowa: City Of The Monks Keeping Part Of Your Tax Refund Isn’t A Taking, Red-Light Runners

Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following, one of the multiple challenges to New York’s latest ratcheting up of rent control.

We think the Questions Presented spell out the issues pretty well:

New York has implemented the most sweeping and onerous rent control provisions the United States has ever seen in its Rent Stabilization Laws and accompanying regulations (“the RSL”). As recently amended, the RSL makes New York’s once “temporary” rent stabilization regime permanent for over one million apartments. Petitioners are owners of apartment buildings regulated by the RSL. The RSL expropriates a definitional feature of Petitioners’ real property—the right to exclude—by granting their tenants a perpetual right to renew their leases. The RSL closes off all viable exit options for Petitioners to change the use of their property and thus avoid RSL regulation. These provisions, when combined with the RSL’s ceiling on the rents that landlords…

Continue Reading Another Cert Petition Challenging NY’s Draconian Rent Control As A Taking

Here’s the latest in a case we’ve been following since before it became one of ours.

In Gearing v. City of Half Moon Bay, No. 21-16688 (Dec. 8, 2022), the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court’s dismissal of a regulatory takings case, holding that federal courts should abstain from considering regulatory takings cases in favor of pending state court eminent domain actions, even when the condemnor instituted the state court action after the federal takings lawsuit was filed.

In the time since the Ninth Circuit issued the opinion, our law firm has joined up with our colleague Kristen Renfro who represented the owner in the court of appeals. That’s why we won’t be commenting further, and instead suggest you read the cert petition we filed today, chiefly authored by Counsel of Record Deborah LaFetra (lately of the Tyler v. Hennepin County takings case). 

Here is the Question…

Continue Reading New Takings Cert Petition (Ours): Can Govt Thwart Federal Court Regulatory Takings Claims By Seeking Abstention In Favor Of State Courts?

Here are what others are saying about Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Tyler v. Hennepin County, No. 22-166 (U.S. May 25, 2023), the case in which the Court unanimously held that the county’s keeping the excess equity in Ms. Tyler’s home over what she owed in property taxes and fees is an uncompensated taking of private property.

  • As usual, lawprof Ilya Somin was first out of the gate with “Major Unanimous Supreme Court Victory for Property Rights in Tyler v. Hennepin County” (“While the Supreme Court decision left some notable issues unresolved, it nonetheless sets a significant precedent. Most obviously, the jurisdictions that currently authorize home equity theft—some twelve states and the District of Columbia—will no longer be allowed to do so. In addition, the holding that states cannot just redefine property rights at will has important implications for other property rights issues. It makes it harder

…
Continue Reading Tyler Takings Round-Up

Caesar
We’ll be rendering to unto Caesar, but first we must
decide: classic or creamy?

That was quick: it seems like it was only yesterday — or maybe more accurately, less than a month ago — that we were listening in live to the Supreme Court as it heard arguments in Tyler v. Hennepin County, No. 22-166, our law firm’s case which argues that Hennepin County’s keeping the excess equity in Ms. Tyler’s home over what she owed in property taxes and fees is an uncompensated taking of private property and also violates the Excessive Fines Clause.

This morning, the Court issued this unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts (again proving he’s the Court’s “property guy”), in which the Court held that the County’s seizing Ms. Tyler’s condo to satisfy her tax debt and then “keeping the change” is a taking. It’s a relatively short opinion with no…

Continue Reading Unanimous SCOTUS: “state law cannot be the only source” Of Property Rights, And “traditional property law principles” As Enforced By The Takings Clause Play A Role