Pakdel v. City and County of San Francisco
Government can’t force tenants for life
Mr. Pakdel is a small business owner in Ohio. In 2009 he bought what’s known as a “tenancy in common” (TIC) apartment in San Francisco and leased it to a residential tenant. As part of the purchase, Pakdel signed an agreement with the other owners to convert the building’s six units into condominiums. But the City of San Francisco requires that property owners doing this conversion must offer lifetime leases to any tenants. Rather than allow the city to trample his property rights by dictating the use of his own property, Pakdel is fighting the unconstitutional mandate in federal court.
Rinehart v. California
Golden State no more? California bans gold prospecting
California’s original Forty-Niners made their fortunes in gold with shovels and pans. Modern-day prospectors use a “suction dredge” – a specialized vacuum – to suck up sediment from streams, extract the gold, and then return the sediment to the stream. Federal law not only permits but encourages suction dredge mining, even on federal lands, while states retain the right to require permits and regulate environmental impacts. Unsatisfied with this balanced approach, California banned suction-dredge mining entirely. Brandon Rinehart, who profitably mined his Nugget Alley claim in the Plumas National Forest for years, was convicted of violating the ban over his defense that the ban is preempted by the federal Mining Act of 1872.
Ganson v. City of Marathon, Florida
Florida decides couple’s land is for the birds
The Beyer family owns a 9-acre island off the Florida coast that was reclassified from a general zoning designation to a bird rookery that permitted no use of the property other than temporary camping. Instead of offering compensation for this taking of property, as required by the Fifth Amendment, the city offered the Beyers only transferable development credits toward possible purchase of a limited number of development permits in other locations.
P.I.E., LLC v. DeSoto County
Florida property owners deserve nothing less than just compensation
Florida’s Bert J. Harris Act requires the government to compensate property owners when a regulation “inordinately burden[s]” private property rights. In this case, Partners in Excavation (P.I.E.) purchased a 50-acre site for $1.25 million for the purpose of excavating fill dirt to be used in their septic contracting work. The property was worth $3.3 million as an excavation site. After the DeSoto County Planning Department approved the site, P.I.E. spent another $250,000 to submit a complete excavation permit application to the county. County staff recommended approval but the county instead denied the permit application and two months later passed a law that forbade excavation on the site. Because the permit denial cost P.I.E. over $2 million in value, it sought compensation under the Harris Act.
National Restaurant Association v. Department of Labor
The outer reaches of a statute are bookends, not blank pages
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) restricts the tipping practices of companies that use tips as a supplement to reach their federal minimum wage obligations—the so-called tip credit. The FLSA forbids companies from requiring tip-earning employees—such as waiters—to share tip money with untipped staff—such as line cooks. The FLSA imposes no such demand on companies that do not use a tip credit. Nonetheless, the Department of Labor issued a regulation requiring all businesses to follow the tip-pooling rule, whether they use the tip credit or not. Restaurants that do not use tip credits sued to invalidate the regulation but the courts upheld it on the theory that the FLSA’s silence on this issue created an ambiguity and the courts would defer to the agency’s interpretation. As amicus curiae, PLF urged the Supreme Court to review this decision.
WildEarth Guardians v. Department of Justice
Unintentional, accidental “take” of species should not be a crime
A radical environmental group challenged the government’s interpretation of the Endangered Species Act. Because the ESA’s criminal penalties apply only you “knowingly” take a protected species, the government reasonably interprets this to mean that you must know that your actions will cause take and the identity of the species affected. PLF intervened on behalf of several southwestern agricultural organizations that fear imprisonment for innocent mistakes that inadvertently “take” anyone of the thousands of federally-protected species. If the radical interpretation succeeds, people could go to jail for accidentally striking an unknown, endangered insect while driving down the highway.
Universal Welding, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Regulatory creep: asserting jurisdiction over the land next door
The Clean Water Act gives the Army Corps of Engineers jurisdiction over wetlands, including wetlands that are adjacent to other jurisdictional waters such as navigable rivers or lakes. The law does not give the Corps jurisdiction over wetlands that are adjacent to other wetlands. Universal Welding is a family-owned steel and pipe fabrication business based in North Pole, Alaska. When it sought to expand its operations on a neighboring parcel that contains some isolated wetlands, the Corps stepped in and demanded multiple onerous conditions and a $70,000 “mitigation fee” to be paid to The Conservation Fund. Universal Welding is challenging the Corps’ ability to impose any conditions because it lacks jurisdiction over this parcel, which is not adjacent to any navigable waters, but only to other wetlands.
Palazzolo v. Rhode Island
Supreme Court affirms landowners’ right to just compensation regardless of when government takes property
Palazzolo v. Rhode Island represents an important check on government and a powerful protection of property rights. Government might have the power to regulate private property, but it must pay property owners for any land it takes—regardless of when it takes a property owner’s land.