Public Use | Kelo

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As you probably are aware, Kelo v. City of New London has generated a ton of legal response: articles, books, cases. It has also rippled out to the broader culture with a movie and a book. At the recent ALI-CLE Eminent Domain conference, for example, we interviewed the producer of “Little Pink House,” the forthcoming feature film about the case. (We’ll share some soundbites from the interview soon, once we edit the podcast.) 

And now, music. A Connecticut group called “Swamp Yankee” has produced an EP, “Kelo v New London,” which, in addition to the title track (above), will contain cuts such as “Norwich,” “Dirge for Jewett City,” and “Shoreline East Rag.” Listen to the tracks here, where you can also order the…

Continue Reading Kelo And The Cultural Zeitgeist: Movies, Music

We’ve posted a lot lately reporting on the 2016 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation Conference, recently held in Austin. We have a couple of more posts for you before we turn to other things. Here is the first, a run-down of the blogs of faculty members, and others we were in the audience. If your blog is missing from this list, email me the link and I will update the post to include it.

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Continue Reading The Blog Lineup From The 2016 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain Conference

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Talk about timing: Dana Berliner, Andy Gowder, and I were talking about the Central Radio case during a session on free speech and other First Amendment issues at the recent ALI-CLE Eminent Domain Conference, when we learned that at the same time we were speaking about the case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was issuing its opinion on remand from the Supreme Court. 

Bottom line: Norfolk, Virginia’s sign ordinance is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. See slip op. at 1 (“Applying the principles of content neutrality articulated in Reed, we hold that the sign ordinance challenged in the plaintiffs’ complaint is a content-based regulation that does not survive strict scrutiny. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s judgment with respect to the plaintiffs’ First Amendment challenge and remand that claim to the district court to award nominal damages to the plaintiffs and for consideration of other…

Continue Reading Fourth Circuit: City Violated First Amendment By Banning Anti-Eminent Domain Sign

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The second day of the 2016 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation conference went as well as the first. Here are some highlights:

  • Austin Mayor Steve Adler (pictured above), who is (was?) also an eminent domain lawyer, welcomed us to his city. 
  • We moderated a discussion between Andy Gowder and Dana Berliner about “First Amendment for Fifth Amendment Lawyers: Free Speech, Signs, Defamation, FOIA, and RLUIPA Claims,” how takings lawyers deal with these issues when they crop up in their cases. 
  • One update from that session: at nearly the same time that we were talking about Central Radio, the case about the Norfolk, Virginia “anti-eminent domain” sign, the Fourth Circuit issued its opinion on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court. We’ll have more in a full post soon, but here’s the bottom line for now: no, the City can’t ban the sign (“we hold that the sign

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Continue Reading 2016 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain Conference, Austin: Second Day

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Here’s what’s going on today, the first day of the 33d annual ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation conference in Austin, Texas. We’re at standing room only, with a record number of attendees and our usual nationally renown faculty.

We started off the day with our usual “Eminent Domain Update” session with Amy Brigham Boulris, and as mentioned, the links to the opinions which we discussed are going to be posted in a separate post today. 

We are being followed by a panel on pipeline takings, one of the hot issues nationwide, with Joe Waldo, Matthew Ray, MAI, Thomas Peebles, and Dave Domina.

That session was followed by Professor Ilya Somin, talking about his book, “The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain.”  

Above are our annual “proof of life” photos taken from the lectern, to show…

Continue Reading ALI-CLE 2016 Eminent Domain Conference, First Day: Standing Room Only, National Expertise

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Austin, Texas, is where we’re at for the next few days, for the 2016 edition of the American Law Institute-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation conference, now in its 33d year. First time we’re in Austin, however, and our registration numbers are looking very good, and we haven’t had this big a turnout in years.

We haven’t been back to Austin in a few years ourselves, so we did what law nerds sometimes do when we go to new towns: visit the local courtroom to check out the scene. So we dropped by the Supreme Court of Texas to take a look. Turns out it was an off-day for the court and it was not in session and the courtroom was locked. But Security suggested that if we asked the Clerk nicely, she might retrieve the key and let us take a look around. And you know what? She did.

Continue Reading ALI-CLE 2016 Eminent Domain Conference: Austin Scouting Report

When we first read the caption in Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer Dist. v. City of Bellefontaine Neighbors, No. SC94831 (Jan. 12, 2016), we admit to a bit of confusion because this is an inverse condemnation case, and it appeared that a public entity was suing one of those activist groups, “The Bellefontaine Neighbors.”

A public entity bringing an inverse claim against some citizens? We’re intrigued.

But then we read the caption more carefully and noticed the “City of” part, which caused us to do what we usually do these days when curiosity strikes: we googled it. And we learned something new: there is a City of Bellefontaine Neighbors in Missouri. In addition to having a very friendly name and an imposing motto (“Strong Traditions … Strong Moral Values”), it also has the distinction of having, “[a]t 22 letters, … the longest name of any incorporated place in the United States.”…

Continue Reading City With Really Long Name Didn’t Take Private Property When It Damaged Publicly-Owned Pipes

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We know we’ve been doing the hard sell lately, with multiple posts on the details of the upcoming 2016 Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation / Condemnation 101 Conference, which runs from January 28-30, 2016, in Austin, Texas. And this will be our last pre-conference post, we promise.

But me and my co-planning chairs, Joe Waldo, Jack Sperber, and Andrew Brigham, think we’re put together a very good program that covers a lot of ground, and we really want you to come. This is also the first time the conference has been to Austin, and we’re in a brand new (as in just opened) hotel, so we’re looking forward to this perhaps more than usual.

The full agenda is posted here, but here are highlights:

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Continue Reading Final Post: More Reasons To Attend The ALI-CLE Eminent Domain Conference

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We’re now only a bit more than two weeks away from the 2016 Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation – Condemnation 101 Conference, which runs from January 28-30, 2016, in Austin, Texas. 

As we’ve noted here earlier, we think that this is going to be a fantastic conference that will cover a lot of ground, and the hot topics of the day. Here’s the full agenda for the program. If you are not familiar with the conference or have not attended recently, we’ve undergone some formatting changes lately, but are still bringing the best faculty and topics to bear. Here’s a summary of last year’s San Francisco conference, to give you an idea of how we’ve updated the programs, while keeping the best elements and traditions unchanged.  

This is the first time the conference has been held in Austin, and thus far, the registration figures are doing exceedingly…

Continue Reading ALI-CLE Eminent Domain Conference, Austin, TX – Nearly Here, But There’s Still Time To Register