Pacific Legal Foundation is a repeat player at the Supreme Court of the United States. Our attorneys have won cases involving property rights, free speech, and Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts, cases that exemplify threats to liberty and property by the regulatory state.
Once his land was ready and all George needed was a county building permit, he was stunned when told he could have his permit, but only if he paid a so-called traffic impact fee of more than $23,000. George weighed the immense cost against the hard work he put into his land and his yearning for a retirement home, and he paid the fee under protest. ...
One of the longest-running legal battles in the history of the Clean Water Act doesn’t involve mega-polluters dumping toxic chemicals into America’s major rivers and lakes. Rather, it involves a couple who wanted to build a home on less than an acre of land in a residential neighborhood. And now, that case could have ramifications for p ...
Wil Wilkins and Jane Stanton live next to Montana’s Bitterroot National Forest. A road that crosses both of their properties is the result of a limited-use easement granted to the U.S. Forest Service by the properties’ previous owners in 1962. The general public is not supposed to use the road, but in 2006 the Forest Service began adver ...
On May 25, 2023, the Supreme Court announced a unanimous decision in favor of Geraldine, ruling that home equity theft violates the Takings Clase of the Fifth Amendment. The Court explained that property rights are fundamental and cannot be erased by a state statute that redefines them out of existence. “The taxpayer must render unto Caesar w ...
Cedar Point Nursery and Fowler Packing Company are California growers that produce fruit for millions of Americans. Collectively, they employ around 3,000 Californians. In 2015, the United Farm Workers (UFW) viewed the workers as ripe for the picking and sent union organizers to storm the workplaces during harvest time to encourage them to unionize ...
If you're accused of a crime in the United States, Article III of the U.S. Constitution guarantees that you will receive a trial by jury. The Sixth Amendment expanded that right to also guarantee "a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury," in which you are "confronted with the witnesses against you," can compel ...
The City of Healdsburg, California, has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed less than two months ago by Jessica Pilling, a local mom represented by Pacific Legal Foundation. Jessica sued the City in September over its "inclusionary housing" ordinance, which tacked a $20,000 fee onto her family's homebuilding project. The City has now refunded the ...
Lately, the Supreme Court has rewritten the textbooks for the study of regulation, known as administrative law. Most scholars ascribe the legal upheaval to politics, period. They say the Court's conservative majority is shaping the law in line with its "anti-regulatory" beliefs. The Justices' values are important, to be sure, but the critics miss a ...
The Supreme Court will have to recognize our property rights as first-class, not second-class, rights that the government does not get to ‘substantially regulate' unless our plans explicitly interfere with someone else's rights. ...
Regardless, giving those brought into agency proceedings the option to remove the case to an actual court would secure their constitutional rights while not overwhelming federal courts. ...
What a way to head into the July 4th holiday: The Supreme Court announced big decisions on the penultimate day of the term—including an end to the doctrine responsible for decades of executive overreach. Supreme Court overturns Chevron in Loper/Relentless In today's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises/Relentless, the Supreme Court overturn ...
This post has been updated to reflect George Sheetz’s April 12 victory at the Supreme Court. Picture this: You're a 65-year-old retiree who bought a small parcel of land in El Dorado County, California. In your career you worked your way up from $5-an-hour laborer to head of your own engineering contracting company. Your plans ...
Rent control is a bad housing policy that won't go away. Unfortunately, this term, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review not one, not two, but three cases that challenged New York City's 2019 iteration of the bad housing policy, euphemistically labeled "rent stabilization." But thanks to Justice Clarence Thomas, the proverbial third strike mi ...
We received heartbreaking news this week when the Supreme Court denied our petition for a writ of certiorari in Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board. The case challenged the school board's overhaul of admissions at Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology—one of the best public high schools in America—undertaken to limi ...
"Where once government was closely constrained to increase the freedom of individuals, now property ownership is closely constrained to increase the power of government. Where once government was a necessary evil because it protected private property, now private property is a necessary evil because it funds government programs." 1San Remo Hotel L. ...
If homeowners miss property tax payments, even if they never received the bills, some towns grab the whole house and keep the proceeds.
The Pacific Legal Foundation said in a new court filing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is doing with the tailpipe emissions rule exactly what the Supreme Court said federal agencies cannot d…
“If the court embraces our view of the nondelegation doctrine, it would mean agencies can’t just go out and search for any sort of open-ended language to justify any rule they might want,” said …
Kevin Fair fell behind on his property taxes in 2014. The local government eventually gave a private investor the deed to his home.
The Pacific Legal Foundation said the decision sends a signal to other states that haven’t yet complied with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Tyler “that property owners’ rights must be protecte…
The Supreme Court’s recent blockbuster cases have had to do with hot-button issues like abortion, racial preferences and guns. But this year, one of the court’s most highly anticipated cases has t…
On Monday, April 22, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. The question before the justices is: did the Ninth Circuit correctly hold that the Eighth Amendment preven…
The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously ruled that fees governments issue — even those imposed by a legislature — must be based on actual adverse impacts.
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that developers and home builders in California may challenge the fees commonly imposed by cities and counties to pay for new roads, schools, sewers and other public imp…
In Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, decided today, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that there is no “legislative exception” to the Takings Clause.
California homeowner George Sheetz won a victory at the Supreme Court on Friday in his challenge to the constitutionality of a fee that he was required to pay the county to receive a permit to build h…
Overturning this 1984 case that gives deference to agency interpretations of statutes would better preserve the constitutional functions of each branch of the federal government.
PLF attorneys are available for speaking engagements and media interviews on cases at the Supreme Court.
To book a speaker, email events@pacificlegal.org. To arrange a media interview or to receive a comment on a Supreme Court case, email media@pacificlegal.org.
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