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 ...
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 w ...
The Supreme Court has ended affirmative action as we knew it with its decision in the Students for Fair Admissions cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina. From now on, college admissions officers can no longer use an applicant's race to decide who gets in and who stays out. So, what now? A ...
The Supreme Court's joint ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. UNC is a huge win for racial equality. Both cases challenged the respective universities' admissions policies, which gave preferential treatment to some races over others. Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) argued this practice is incomp ...
Pacific Legal Foundation’s Supreme Court victory in Tyler v. Hennepin County created a domino effect across the country. State by state, legislatures are banning home equity theft. Governments have realized that they face significant liability if they ignore the Supreme Court's ruling that home equity theft is unconstitutional. In the New ...
In her concurring opinion in Sackett v. EPA, Justice Elena Kagan—probably the sharpest rhetorician on the bench, especially when she's disagreeing with her colleagues—complained the Court’s majority was putting "a thumb on the scale for property owners." Well: Shouldn't there be a thumb on the scale for property owners in the court of ...
Only two weeks removed from Pacific Legal Foundation's major Supreme Court victory against home equity theft in Tyler v. Hennepin County, there is once again cause for celebration, especially if you live in Nebraska. In Tyler, the Court unanimously ruled that Minnesota's use of home equity theft—when governments and their private partners satisfy ...
On October 18, 1972, Congress enacted into law the Clean Water Act (CWA), giving the federal government authority to regulate pollution and quality standards for the "waters of the United States." On March 5, 1973—just over four months later—Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) became the first public interest legal organization dedicated to protecti ...
On May 25, the Supreme Court ruled home equity theft unconstitutional in its unanimous Tyler v. Hennepin County decision. The case, argued by my colleague Christina Martin, challenged Hennepin County, Minnesota's confiscation of Geraldine Tyler's former home as payment for approximately $15,000 in back taxes, costs, interests, and penalties. Even t ...
In a unanimous decision last week, the Supreme Court ruled home equity theft unconstitutional, securing an individual's right to just compensation when their property is seized. For years, Pacific Legal Foundation has argued that home equity theft—when governments satisfy property tax debt by taking a person's home, selling it, and keeping more t ...
From a single word in the 1977 Amendments to the Clean Water Act, the federal government built a mighty regulatory empire over millions of acres of private property. Last Thursday, thanks to Mike and Chantell Sackett, their attorneys at Pacific Legal Foundation, and nine Justices at the Supreme Court, the borders of that empire receded. ...
I'm going to remember today for a long time. This morning—at around 7 a.m. where I am in California—the Supreme Court announced unanimous decisions in two Pacific Legal Foundation cases. Both are stunning victories. In Sackett v. EPA, which PLF senior attorney Damien Schiff argued on the first day of the term ...
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of o…
e’ve all checked the boxes on race and ethnicity questionnaires, a staple of most government applications and surveys, and they have never made much sense. On ethnicity, they ask whether you are “…
Eliminating race discrimination means eliminating all of it. So holds the Supreme Court in two consolidated cases handed down yesterday, While the Supreme Court sharply curtailed the use of race-based…
Some federal regulator or another thinks you’ve broken the law. What happens next? You might think that they file charges in a federal court and the judicial system takes over to determine whether y…
Universities take note — the Supreme Court will not tolerate the fanatical and wanton reliance on race that has become the norm in admissions. In Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North …
After a decade-and-half battle with the Environmental Protection Agency, Michael and Chantell Sackett were finally vindicated by the US Supreme Court. Yet one significant part of the Sackett v. EPA op…
When you cast a vote for your chosen candidate, you are not only making your voice heard in one of our most cherished civic rituals but also endorsing the fundamental principle of democratic accountab…
When the government is caught stealing, it should be required to return what it took. For the Federal Trade Commission, though, such a simple notion is an affront to the way it has done business for d…
Last fall, Robert Redford (yes, that Robert Redford) took to the pages of USA Today to offer a dire warning of the dystopian future awaiting us if the Supreme Court reined in the Clean Water Act in Sa…
On May 1, the US Supreme Court granted certiorari in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which is sure to send shockwaves through the administrative state. At issue is the doctrine known as Chevron …
On April 14, the US Supreme Court unanimously handed a loss on a silver platter to the administrative state. In Cochran v. SEC and Axon Enterprise, Inc. v. FTC, the court concluded the executive adjud…
Patricia Miller lost her childhood home in 2010 over only $808 in unpaid property taxes. The mortgage had been paid off many years before, when Patricia’s father, Devoe Poleeson, owned the small Pho…
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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