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. ...
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 ...
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. ...
This post has been updated to reflect George Sheetz’s April 12 victory at the Supreme Court. Picture this: You're a 65-year-old retiree who bought a small parcel of land in El Dorado County, California. In your career you worked your way up from $5-an-hour laborer to head of your own engineering contracting company. Your plans ...
Rent control is a bad housing policy that won't go away. Unfortunately, this term, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review not one, not two, but three cases that challenged New York City's 2019 iteration of the bad housing policy, euphemistically labeled "rent stabilization." But thanks to Justice Clarence Thomas, the proverbial third strike mi ...
We received heartbreaking news this week when the Supreme Court denied our petition for a writ of certiorari in Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board. The case challenged the school board's overhaul of admissions at Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology—one of the best public high schools in America—undertaken to limi ...
Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will not hear our Thomas Jefferson High School case, a fight to determine whether public school students should be treated as individuals—on merit—or as members of racial groups. This is disappointing news for Pacific Legal Foundation and our clients, the Coalition for TJ: a group of ...
"Where once government was closely constrained to increase the freedom of individuals, now property ownership is closely constrained to increase the power of government. Where once government was a necessary evil because it protected private property, now private property is a necessary evil because it funds government programs." 1San Remo Hotel L. ...
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a critical case about homelessness called City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. I wrote about this last week, and Fox News published my opinion. In this op-ed, I write: The plight of the homeless calls out to anyone with a heart. Drug and alcohol addiction, mental ...
"I'll take it all the way to the Supreme Court." It's far easier said than done, and it can take years for a legal battle to wind its way through the courts. When the federal government is on the other side—as it often is in Pacific Legal Foundation cases—it takes a relentless, determined attitude to ...
Sheetz now comes to the Court asking it to confirm the role of the Takings Clause in securing one's right to build on property free of predatory conditions by the government. It should. ...
Just about every time a case involving the administrative state heads to the Supreme Court, we're subjected to hysterical warnings of the end of the world. A recent piece in The Atlantic might set a new standard for apocalyptic fearmongering. NYU Law Professor Noah Rosenblum frets that what he calls a garden-variety securities fraud case ...
On Tuesday, January 9, 2024, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, a case challenging the government's ability to place unreasonable conditions, including large "impact fees," on property owners seeking building permits. Pacific Legal Foundation partnered with Paul Beard of FisherBroyles, LLP and argued that the i ...
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…
The plight of the homeless calls out to anyone with a heart. Drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, and the outsized cost of housing have driven a sharp uptick in the number of homeless living in…
PLF attorneys are available for speaking engagements and media interviews on cases at the Supreme Court.
To book a speaker, email events@pacificlegal.org. To arrange a media interview or to receive a comment on a Supreme Court case, email media@pacificlegal.org.
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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