Articles

The members of the Wall family never imagined their attempt to build a pool and spa at their isolated home in Hollister Ranch, California, would end them up in court. But as many Pacific Legal Foundation clients have discovered, the California Coastal Commission (CCC) has a long history of giving landowners no other option. Hollister … ...

Supreme Court justices need a healthy respect for past precedents. But sometimes, precedent is so bad it simply has to be overturned. The court did just that last month in the case of Knick v. Township of Scott. The court delivered a victory for champions of property rights by overturning a 1985 precedent that had … ...

Today, the Supreme Court restored a critical right for property owners: the right to be heard in court. Rose Knick of Pennsylvania is a PLF client who’s been embroiled in a years-long legal dispute with local officials over a local law that forces her to allow public access to her private farm. Rose’s case, Knick v. … ...

Today, we received a favorable, published decision from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Garrett v. City of New Orleans.   This case challenges the City’s demolition of a town home a couple (the Garretts) purchased from the City. The City destroyed the home without any notice, hearing or compensation to the … ...

In late May, PLF attorneys filed this brief on the merits in the case of Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, which is currently before the United States Supreme Court. The Knick case is a property rights dispute arising from a Town’s efforts to force Ms. Rose Mary Knick to allow the public to enter and … ...

Rose Mary Knick owns a quiet, 90-acre, stone-fenced farm in rural Pennsylvania. The parcel is bounded on all sides by old stone walls and no trespassing signs at various intervals. According to the local government, it also contains an ancient burial ground of some sort… … ...

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 ...

James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, once said that “government is instituted to protect property of every sort. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own.” The Supreme Court is now poised to hear a property rights case, … ...

Today, the United States Supreme Court issued its oral argument calendar for March, 2017. Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) is pleased to note that the Court included PLF’s important property rights case, Murr v. State of Wisconsin, on that March calendar. The Court has specifically scheduled the Murr case for argument on March 20, 2017. … ...