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ALI-CLE-2016-masthead

We’re exactly one month away from the 2016 Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation / Condemnation 101 Conference, which runs from January 28-30, 2016, in Austin, Texas. 

Together with our friends and colleagues Joe Waldo, Jack Sperber, and Andrew Brigham, we think we’re put together a pretty good program that covers a lot of ground. This is the first time the conference has been to Austin, and we’re hoping for a good turnout. 

Here’s the full agenda for the program. 

If you have not already signed up, there is more than enough room, and there’s still time.

If you haven’t yet pulled the trigger, we’d like to convince you to come. So over the next few days, we’re going to be posting highlights from the agenda, featuring our stellar faculty.

  • We’ll start off with a talk welcoming us to the city by Austin Mayor Steve Adler

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Continue Reading Counting Down To The ALI-CLE Eminent Domain Conference (Austin, Jan 28-30, 2016)

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More from our end-of-year clearing of the opinion hopper.

Winston Churchill reportedly said, “Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Well, the case of City of Memphis v. Tandy J. Gilliland Family LLC, No. W2014-02472-COA-R3-CV (Dec. 16, 2015) might prove the point.

The opinion was the second time the Tennessee Court of Appeals considered issues regarding the taking of the Gilliland Family’s land by the Memphis Light, Gas, and Water Division (nice use of the Oxford comma there, MLGW) for utility poles. The first time up, the question involved public use. The court concluded the taking was for public use, even though MLGW allowed the poles to be shared by private telecommunications and cable providers. In the…

Continue Reading Tenn App And The Churchill Principle: On Further Review, We Goofed

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Whatever you might celebrate at this time of year — Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or whatever (or even if you don’t celebrate anything except good cheer and gift giving) — here’s our suggestion for the gift for the takings nerd in your life: Professor Ilya Somin’s fantastic book, “The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London & The Limits Of Eminent Domain.”

It’s a book that is both scholarly and readable, and filled with details, history, and perspective. You can’t do better than this. Available as both an e-book and in hardback (for you luddites).

Highly recommended. 

Note: Professor Somin is one of the featured speakers at the upcoming ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation conference in Austin, Texas (January 28-30, 2016) where he will talk about the book and recent developments in our favorite area of law. 

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Kelo At 10: Still Stinks, And A

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Continue Reading Holiday Gift Suggestion For Takings Nerds: Lawprof Somin’s Kelo Book “The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London & The Limits Of Eminent Domain”

A shorter one today. In Catalina Foothills Unified School Dist. No. 16 v. La Paloma Prop. Owners Ass’n, Inc. No. 1 CA-CV 14-0838 (Nov. 24, 2015), the Arizona Court of Appeals held that a statutory grant of power to school districts to take property for “buildings and grounds” also implied the power to take property to access those buildings and grounds.

The School District acquired La Paloma’s vacant land in a stipulated eminent domain judgment, promising that the only access to the new campus from an adjacent private road also owned by La Paloma would be on foot. The road was used by residents of the La Paloma subdivision for vehicular access.

Well, you know how these things go when you make agreements with entities with the power of eminent domain, and sure enough, after the District built a new campus, it decided that it also needed vehicular access…

Continue Reading Ariz App: Statute Giving School District Power To Take “Buildings And Grounds” Implies Power To Take Roads

ALI-CLE-2016-masthead

Here’s the full agenda for the 2016 Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation / Condemnation 101 Conference, January 28-30, 2016, in Austin, Texas. 

Together with our friend and colleague Joe Waldo, we think we’re put together a pretty good program that covers a lot of ground. This is the first time the conference has been to Austin, and we’re starting off with a talk by Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who in his former life was an eminent domain lawyer. Other highlights:

  • Professor Ilya Somin will speak about his recently-published book in a segment entitled “The Impact of Kelo and the Limits of Eminent Domain.”
  • “Pipelines and Energy Corridors: Valuation Perspectives of Condemnors and Condemnees” with the lawyers on the front lines of one of the hottest topics in eminent domain law nationwide.
  • Retired Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Paul H. Anderson will give us his tips

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Continue Reading It’s Here – 2016 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain Conference: Complete Agenda, Faculty, Registration Information

From the Ninth Circuit, a published opinion in a case challenging a Napa Valley city’s mobilehome rent control ordinance, Rancho de Calistoga v. City of Calistoga, No. 12-17749 (Sep. 3, 2015). Here’s a complete summary of the issues in the case, along with the Ninth Circuit merits and amici briefs. We’ve been following it because we filed an amicus brief in support of the property owner’s argument that it pleaded enough to get by a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. 

The Ninth Circuit didn’t agree, and affirmed the District Court’s dismissal. The panel concluded the case was ripe under Williamson County (an issue that seemed to occupy a lot of the judges’ time at oral arguments), but that the owner’s theory that “even if the taking is for a public purpose, the rent subsidy should be paid by the government if the rent is…

Continue Reading Where’s Palazzolo, Ninth Circuit? Owner Bought Property Subject To Regulation (Just Not These Regulations), So Has No Takings Claim

No, it’s not the latest economic development project, but an item we’ve reported on earlier: Jeff Benedict’s “Little Pink House” book about the Kelo case is being turned into a movie. Here’s a Reason interview with one of the movie’s producers explaining why the story attracted them, and what we can expect from the film.

Biggest question we have is the casting. Here are our earlier suggestions. 

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Continue Reading Eminent Domain Abuse, Coming To A Theater Near You

Here’s an article by IJ’s Dana Berliner, a retrospective on public use in eminent domain and where the decade since Kelo has left us.  

It is a sign of the constitutional damage Kelo caused that these two related features of the opinion—blind deference and the refusal to engage with facts—have marked post-Kelo jurisprudence.

Berliner, Looking Back Ten Years After Kelo, 125 Yale L.J.F. 82 (2015). 

A quick and worthy read. 

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Continue Reading Worth Reading: “Looking Back Ten Years After Kelo”

The Solicitor General of South Carolina has issued this opinion letter, answering the following three questions about a state statute which “purports to confer all rights, powers, and privileges given to telegraph and telephone companies” to pipeline companies:

  • Since S.C. Code § 58-7-10 et seq. appears to mainly concern waterworks, sewage disposal, and natural gas lines, do its provisions also apply to oil and gasoline pipelines and extend to them the public power of eminent domain?

  • If your answer to Question 1 is “yes,” then why isn’t an extension of eminent domain power to a private, for-profit pipeline company unconstitutional under S.C. Article 1, § 13(A)?

  • If an oil and gas pipeline company has eminent domain authority, and this authority is not unconstitutional, must an oil or gasoline pipeline company follow all regulations, rules, legal requirements, or other policies or procedures that are applicable to telephone and telegraph companies

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Continue Reading SC AG: Oil And Gas Pipelines Probably Can’t Exercise Eminent Domain Like Telephone Companies