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Our friends at the Institute for Justice have just published four important new reports about eminent domain in the year since the Kelo decision: Opening the Floodgates: Eminent Domain Abuse in a Post-Kelo World Redevelopment Wrecks: 20 Failed Projects Involving Eminent Domain Abuse Myths and Realities of Eminent Domain Abuse Legislative Action Sin ...

by Timothy Sandefur The Cato Institute's daily podcast today features my discussion of the Griswold v. Carlsbad case. That's the case I argued in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week, and you can read more about it here. You can download the podcast from iTunes or listen to it at Cato's site. … ...

Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski signed legislation yesterday to free the market for entrepreneurs in the moving industry, eliminating a decades-old rule that allowed existing moving companies to block applications for new licenses.  The change came in response to a civil rights lawsuit filed by PLF and Portland business owner Adam Sweet, whose comp ...

PLF lauds Ricci ruling, which can help PLF’s current lawsuits against San Francisco and Caltrans public-works contracting quotas The Supreme Court ruled Monday that New Haven, CT. violated federal civil rights law when it scrapped the results of a firefighters promotional exam because the top scorers did not meet the city’s preferred ra ...

Author:    Damien M. Schiff Last week in Simsbury-Avon Preservation Society v. Metacon Gun Club, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a commonsense decision that the firing of lead bullets over dry land does not violate the Clean Water Act prohibition on the discharge of a pollutant into waters of the United States.  In the case, local ...

In Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992), the court held that a state could not deny a landowner all economically beneficial use of a property; however, it made an exception for regulations which were permitted by “background principles of the state’s property and nuisance” law. But what exactly are ‘back ...

Author: Joshua Thompson In a move long overdue, New Haven, Connecticut, promoted fourteen firefighters to either lieutenant or captain.  The firefighters, despite scoring well enough on tests to be promoted back in 2003, had to fight for their rights all the way to the Supreme Court.  PLF was involved in the Supreme Court case, Ricci … ...

Yesterday, PLF filed a lawsuit in federal court in Riverside, California, to challenge the United States Fish and Wildlife Service’s continuing failure to issue a final determination on the Riverside County Farm Bureau’s petition to delist the Stephens’ kangaroo rat from the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Farm Bureau submitted ...

Author: Joshua Thompson Last week I blogged about the City of Chicago’s drastic measures to avoid disparate-impact liability, and noted how the Supreme Court was set to hear Lewis v. Chicago.  That case deals with the statute of limitations in disparate-impact cases. Today PLF filed its amicus curiae brief in Lewis.  While Part I discusses ...