Articles

Weekly litigation report — April 29, 2017

April 29, 2017 | By JAMES BURLING

Supreme Court requests further briefing in affordable housing case Victory in Anaheim parent-trigger case Brief opposing EPA regulatory overkill Senate hearing addresses PLF wetlands case WOTUS at SCOTUS Wolf Releases Revived Supreme Court requests further briefing in affordable housing case At least some of the justices at the Supreme Court are in ...

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Yes, President Trump Can Undo Controversial National Monuments

April 29, 2017 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order requiring a review of the large national monuments that have been created over the last 21 years. The president ran on a platform of reducing regulations to promote jobs and economic growth, but he inherited vast areas — nearly a billion acres in total — that have been shut … ...

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Concerns over Duarte case remain for US Senators

April 28, 2017 | By TONY FRANCOIS

On Wednesday of this week, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a hearing on the legal and technical flaws in the Obama Administration’s 2015 WOTUS definition.* During the hearing, Sen. Ernst (R – IA) asked panelist and Wisconsin Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin about the Duarte Nursery case. Tseytlin agreed that he ...

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Victory in Anaheim parent trigger law case

April 28, 2017 | By CALEB TROTTER

A little over a year ago we wrote about a maddening case in Anaheim, California. In 2015, a group of elementary school parents sought to take advantage of California’s Parent Empowerment Act (the “parent trigger”) to force the Anaheim City School District to convert their children’s continually failing school into an indepe ...

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Supreme Court directs West Hollywood to respond to PLF’s legislative exactions challenge

April 28, 2017 | By BRIAN HODGES

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the City of West Hollywood to respond to PLF’s certiorari petition in the legislative exactions case, 616 Croft Ave, LLC v. City of West Hollywood. As you may recall, the 616 Croft Ave. petition asks the U.S. Supreme Court to review a California Court of Appeal decision … ...

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Short-term home rentals and safe neighborhoods can coexist

April 28, 2017 | By MARK MILLER

This week in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Goldwater Institute‘s Executive Vice-President Christina Sandefur and I encourage Florida cities to stop punishing responsible home owners who share their homes with tourists on a short-term basis. Floridians have rented homes out to vacationers and ‘snowbirds’ for decades, but in ...

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There's no longer a union walk-around rule

April 27, 2017 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

Today, we’re happy to announce that the union walk-around rule is no more. This rule was promulgated by OSHA back in 2013 and it permitted non-employee union operatives to accompany governmental workplace inspections — even when the workforce was not unionized. This made two fundamental changes to the walk-around rule as it had existed ...

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Briefing on WOTUS Rule begins in Supreme Court

April 27, 2017 | By REED HOPPER

On behalf of landowners, we filed our initial challenge to the Army Corps and EPA  “waters of the United States” or “WOTUS” rule in the Federal District Court of Minnesota in 2015. That case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. We filed a parallel challenge to the WOTUS rule in the 8th Circuit Court of … ...

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PLF asks Supreme Court to hear massive beach land grab case

April 27, 2017 | By J. DAVID BREEMER

This week, Pacific Legal Foundation attorneys filed a Petition for Certiorari asking the United States Supreme Court to review the case of Nies v. Town of Emerald Isle, discussed more here.  The Petition presents the important question of “whether the Takings Clause permits a state to statutorily redefine an entire coastline of privately ow ...