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Yet another year has comeand gone — our third at this blog, — so it’s time to start off ourannual summary of the past year’s highlights (or lowlights, dependingon your point of view) in land use law and other topics covered oninversecondemnation.com.

It was mostly a year of incrementaldoctrinal shifts, with a couple of sea changes thrown in forexcitement: the Ninth Circuit finally ditched Armendariz andrecognized the validity of substantive due process in land use cases;the Hawaii Supreme Court came out strongly in favor of property owner’srights in eminent domain proceedings, holding that courts should notsimply take the government’s word that a taking is for public use, andrequiring the government to bear the economic burden when its attemptsto take property fail; the Hawaii intermediate appellate court heldthat there is no private right of action under the state land use laws.

It was also a year in which certain issues kept…

Continue Reading 2008 Land Use In Review

For those of you stuck in the office today, a contest: I’ll send to the first three people who email me today their very own “limited edition” of my firm’s just-released extra-large, cobalt blue coffee mug, shown below.

(Don’t forget to include your name and postal address in your email.)

A happy and safe holiday to all.

12190814351219081435a Continue Reading Office Swag Contest

In 1994, at the dawn of mass public use of the internet, I wrote an article for the Journal of Legal Education about the benefits and dangers of using technology as a pedagogical crutch in law schools: “Hey, Did You Get My E-Mail?” Reflections of a Retro-Grouch in the Computer Age of Legal Education, 44 J. Legal Educ. 233 (1994) (I can email you a copy if you want to read it, just ask).

As the title of the article indicates, I may be a quasi-Luddite when it comes to tech, so I’m not even quite sure I know what it means to “be on Twitter.” But it is apparently becoming another channel for communication and the sharing of ideas, so as of today, we’re on Twitter. I’ll try and keep the signal-to-noise ratio high, and use Twitter for items that may not merit full blog posts, or…

Continue Reading Resistance is Futile: Inversecondemnation.com Now on Twitter

In reviewing some of the comments posted on the Honolulu Advertiser’s November 1 report  “Rail study doesn’t list all affected properties,”it seems several of the commenters have fairly severe misconceptionsabout how eminent domain law works in Hawaii. Let’s clear some up somemyths.

  • Myth #1: The city will offer a “premium” to property ownerswhose homes, businesses and churches will need to be acquired, becausethe city will want their properties quickly. Wrong on twocounts. First, the city does not need to offer a premium since Hawaiilaw has a procedure by which the city can take immediate possession ofproperty it wants, “ex parte” (without notice to thelandowner). Second, the city will only offer what it believes to be theamount legally required to be paid for “just compensation” and damage,not a penny more. Indeed, the citywill claim it is fulfilling its obligation to the rest of thetaxpayers when it offers

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Continue Reading Clearing Up Myths About Hawaii Eminent Domain Law