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.
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 ...
Home equity is private property, however, and is just as protected as a home or land. Government can’t avoid its obligation to pay just compensation for a property’s equity by simply saying the home equity doesn’t exist. Now, at 94 years old and in a senior-living facility, Geraldine is fighting back in the U.S. Supreme Court. &# ...
On Wednesday, November 30, PLF attorney Jeffrey McCoy argued Wilkins v. USA at the Supreme Court. Montana neighbors Wil Wilkins and Jane Stanton have been trying to protect their remote forest homes after the U.S. Forest Service opened their small private road to the public, in violation of a decades-old easement agreement. When Wil and ...
What are the facts of this case? At issue in Wilkins v. United States is a forest road, a disagreement over easement terms, and a question about the statute of limitations on quiet title claims. Wil Wilkins and Jane Stanton are two neighbors living near a Montana national forest who just want peace and privacy. Wil and ...
On the morning of October 3, 2022, I argued Sackett v. EPA II at the Supreme Court. It was the opening case of the Court's new term. An element of theater I've argued at the Supreme Court only one other time previously—a decade ago, in this same case (Sackett v. EPA I). But even attorneys ...
On Monday, October 3, Pacific Legal Foundation senior attorney Damien Schiff will argue Sackett v. EPA at the Supreme Court. At issue is the scope of the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate wetlands under the Clean Water Act. More than 350 organizations, states, and members of Congress have filed amicus briefs in support of ...
Taking on the United States government in court is not for the faint of heart—it takes courage, grit, and a deep belief in the cause for which you are fighting. When the government violated the terms of an agreement it made with property owners in Montana, one man refused to take the abuse lying down. ...
Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a parcel of land in 2004 near Priest Lake, Idaho, with dreams of building their family home on the site. Construction began in 2007—but stopped almost immediately when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stepped in and issued a compliance order, claiming their land is a federally protected wetland and accusi ...
On July 5, Axios not-so-subtly warned us that "the Supreme Court's next target is the executive branch." The Guardian's headline was even more stark: "The U.S. Supreme Court has declared war on the Earth's future." With headlines like these, you might think we're experiencing the end times. Or, as Imagine Dragons put it in ...
The Supreme Court agrees to hear oral arguments in only about 70 cases each term. Those 70 cases are selected for review from a flood of roughly 7,000-8,000 cert petitions. Next term, two of those cases will be Pacific Legal Foundation cases: Sackett v. EPA, which the Supreme Court accepted for review in January, and ...
Schoolchildren are not known for their patience. But sometimes they have good reason to want something not next year, not next month, but now. Such as when their futures are on the line before the Supreme Court. The slow Supreme Court process In normal circumstances, it takes more than a year for the Supreme ...
An elderly widow whose condo was seized and sold by the county government for unpaid property taxes, with the government pocketing the proceeds from the equity in her property, may finally get relief …
The justices will hear a challenge to the way government and private companies reap profits when properties are seized for a failure to pay taxes.
After an action-packed start to the term, the Supreme Court returns to the bench next week for the first winter oral argument sitting. And while the term was frontloaded with headline-grabbing cases, …
On Wednesday, Wilkins’ attorneys will appear before the nation’s highest bench to argue that the Montana landowner and one of his neighbors, Jane Stanton, should have legal recourse against the Fo…
Wil Wilkins of Ravalli County, Mont., acknowledges he’s a bit of a throwback. Growing up in West Virginia, he says his mother used to tell him, “You was born a hundred years too late, boy.” It…
One hundred years ago, on Nov. 13, 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court held that an Asian man could not become an American citizen because of his race. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court considered whether uni…
This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a pair of cases asking whether affirmative action in college admissions violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. If the cour…
It’s essentially just a normal family home buildable lot, which was fully permitted by the county. So, it is kind of funny to think about the district court and the Ninth Circuit affirmed EPA has au…
The immediate stakes, of course, are whether the Sacketts may build their dream home. For more than 15 years, the Sacketts’ plans have been on hold, and, at long last, the end of their ordeal is in …
You might ask: What is the EPA doing telling ordinary Americans whether they can build a house? The agency claims that the Sacketts’ lot is a federally regulated “navigable water” under the Clea…
By The Editorial Board Sept. 30, 2022 6:57 pm ET 1562 WSJ Opinion: The Mirror-Image Midterm Elections You may also like Your browser does not support HTML5 video. WSJ Opinion: The Mirror-Image Midterm…
Although the Supreme Court likely won’t be talking much about guns and abortions this term, there will be fireworks on issues ranging from race preferences at colleges, to California’s politically…
PLF attorneys are available for speaking engagements and media interviews on cases at the Supreme Court.
To book a speaker, email [email protected]. To arrange a media interview or to receive a comment on a Supreme Court case, email [email protected].
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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