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. The County ignored his protest, so George sued, arguing the fees constituted an unconstitutional permit condition under three Supreme Court decisions—including two PLF victories.
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 property owners around the country.
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 advertising the road as public. Since then, public use of the road has caused serious traffic hazards, road damage, fire threats, noise, trespassing, illegal hunting, and speeding, as well as a gunshot aimed at Wil’s cat. Because the Forest Service is essentially trying to gain a better easement than it paid for back in 1962, Wil and Jane are fighting back.
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 what is Caesar’s,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the decision, “but no more.”
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. Even though property owners have a right to exclude trespassers, the state’s Union Access Regulation takes an easement that allows these union organizers to enter a business’s private property three hours a day, 120 days a year. The businesses asked the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate California’s unlawful regulation and affirm that government can’t allow unions to invade private property and disrupt commercial operations without paying compensation for a property taking. On November 13, 2020, the Supreme Court announced that the justices would hear the case.
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 partners with private counsel on important public interest litigation at the appellate level. If you have such a case and your clients cannot afford continuing litigation, ask us about partnering to take a case to the Supreme Court.
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