Municipal & Local Govt law

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Check this out: according to this article (“This SC man won a Supreme Court case. He wants to know why he can’t talk about it“), David Lucas, the lawyer-property owner behind the big reg takings case Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1993), was apparently not invited to speak at the (ongoing) event at the University of South Carolina law school marking the 25th anniversary of the decision. The local paper reports:

The University of South Carolina law school is holding a three-day event to mark the 25th anniversary of a S.C. man’s legal victory in the U.S. Supreme Court. But the victor in that case, Davis Lucas, isn’t invited, and he’s upset.

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Lucas, who sued for the right to build on two lots on the Isle of Palms, is upset neither he nor his attorneys were invited…

Continue Reading Lucas Not Invited To Lucas Conference

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No soup for you!

Update: our colleague Bryan Wenter has his take on one of the cases denied review here (“U.S. Supreme Court Again Declines to Consider Important Property Rights Issue Regarding the Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine“) (“Because the current composition of the U.S. Supreme Court leans ideologically conservative by any traditional measure and it takes only four of nine Justices to grant certiorari, on the surface it is surprising that the Court has yet to take up a case, such as CBIA or 616 Croft Ave., that would finally resolve this distinction between sweeping legislative takings and particularized administrative takings. The surprise is enhanced to a degree by the fact that the Court considered both cases in conference four times, which suggests a serious interest in the issue.”).

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To bring you up to speed on cases of interest in the Supreme Court’s cert pipeline…

Continue Reading Cert Denied, Denied, Denied, Denied In Property Cases (But Don’t Give Up The Ship Just Yet)

Update: 10/28/2019: “Lights Out in the Land of No: The Practical Effects of California’s Wildfire Inverse Condemnation Doctrine,” a post about the (ongoing) wildfires and latest developments in inverse condemnation doctrine.

Update 3/12/2018: “California Wildfires, Inverse Condemnation, and Climate Change,” a post about the various responses to the wildfire inverse condemnation lawsuits.

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Here’s a story from the San Francisco Chronicle about the legal angles in the recent northern California wildfires, “PG&E could pay dearly for North Bay fires, even if it followed rules. (“The lethal wildfires in the North Bay could exact a heavy cost on Pacific Gas and Electric Co., even if the utility did nothing wrong.”).

The focus of the piece is on inverse condemnation and the potential liability of the power company (PG&E):

If investigators do find that PG&E’s electrical lines started the fires, the company will probably be liable…

Continue Reading California Fires And Inverse Condemnation: The “You Broke It, You Bought It” Theory

We were all set to dive into the California Court of Appeal’s opinion (rendered in September, but only published yesterday) in Dryden Oaks, LLC v. San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, No. D069161 (Oct. 19, 2017), when our colleague Bryan Wenter beat us to the punch. 

So we won’t go into detail, and recommend instead you read his post at the Miller Starr Regalia Land Use Developments blog, “Court Rejects Regulatory Takings and Pre-Condemnation Misconduct Claims Based on Airport Land Use Commission’s Reclassification of Property Within Different Safety Zone.”

As Bryan writes:

In short, in 2002 the City approved permits for both lots despite determinations the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority’s determination the projects were incompatible with the airport. The developer completed construction of a commercial building on one of the lots in 2005, but the second permit expired in 2012 without commencement of any…

Continue Reading Cal App: Airport Didn’t Take Property By Adopting A Safety Plan That Prohibited Nearby Building (But Maybe The City Did)

The complete agenda and faculty list has now been posted on the ALI-CLE website, and early registration is open! Go now and reserve your spot. 

We paid a visit to Charleston recently, the venue for our January 2018 conference, to scout it out. We can report that we’re going to have a great time, for sure. When we polled you last year, you selected Charleston as your first choice (a new city for the Conference), and it is shaping up to be a very good selection. In addition to the usual lineup of CLE programming, there are a ton of things to see and do in the area. We recorded a short video down at the “four corners of law” (the intersection of Meeting Street and Broad Street), to give you a preview (the weather was much better than in our 2016 preview video, too).

As an added…

Continue Reading 2018 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain Conference – Agenda And Faculty Now Posted

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University of Hawaii Law School Professor David Callies last night was presented with William and Mary Law School’s Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize which is “presented annually to a scholar, practitioner or jurist whose work affirms the fundamental importance of property rights.” 

As W&M notes about Professor Callies, a “prolific scholar whose work explores land use, property, and state and local government law, Callies has lectured around the world and authored or collaborated on about 90 articles and 20 books. He has been a member of the prestigious American Law Institute since 1990 and is the Benjamin A. Kudo Professor of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Prior to entering academia, he was an attorney in private practice and an assistant state’s attorney.”

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We’re spending today in a series of panels which explore and build upon Professor Callies’ lifetime of work. Michael Berger, a past Prize winner, kicked off…

Continue Reading Professor David Callies Awarded William & Mary Law’s Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize

A quick one since we’re in transit, and don’t really have time to post much. But that doesn’t mean that the Fifth Circuit’s opinion in Boerschig v. Trans-Pecos Pipeline, L.L.C. , No.  16-50931 (Oct. 3, 2017), isn’t worth your time to read in-depth. 

Here’s the setup:

Texas law allows a natural gas utility to condemn land for “public use.” Tex. Util Code § 181.004; Tex. Const. art. I, § 17(a). Trans-Pecos Pipeline, LLC exercised that authority and initiated a condemnation proceeding to obtain a 50-foot wide permanent right-of-way and easement on John Boerschig’s ranch. The ranch is along the route of a 148-mile pipeline Trans-Pecos is constructing in west Texas that terminates at the Mexican border in the middle of the Rio Grande.

Boerschig contends that by ceding condemnation power to a private company, Texas eminent domain law offends due process. His argument principally relies on the private nondelegation…

Continue Reading 5th Circuit: Texas Delegating Eminent Domain Power To A Private Pipeline Isn’t A Due Process Problem

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Back when the opinion was first released, we posted a list of Murr v. Wisconsin links. Now that Court is nearly back from its summer vacation, here’s an updated list:

Will there be more? No doubt. Murr is the takings case that keeps on giving. Continue Reading The Takings Case That Keeps On Giving: Murr Round-Up, Continued

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Here’s the amici brief we’re filing today in a case we’ve been following, Jarreau v. South LaFourche Levee District, No. 17-163.

As the name of the case indicates, this one is out of Louisiana and the Question Presented asks whether the Fifth Amendment’s Just Compensation Clause requires that an owner be made economically whole when her business is destroyed as the consequence of an exercise of eminent domain.

There’s a lower court split, and the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on the subject in the famous case of Kimball Laundry Co. v. United States, 338 U.S. 1 (1949), in which the Court held that the owner was entitled to so-called “business losses” when the government took the laundry. Many lower courts have distinguished Kimball Laundry, however, holding that it only applies when the government actually takes the business involved, and was not deciding that the Just Compensation…

Continue Reading New Amici Brief: “The reality is that “just compensation” is, in application, often neither just nor results in compensation.”