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 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 ...
After the Supreme Court announced its 6-3 ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, many accused the Court of "destroying environmental protections" (Vox) and "leaving Biden with few tools to combat climate change (The New York Times). But as several PLF attorneys told the media this week, the West Virginia decision actually restores the power ...
On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, a 30-year-old shoemaker from New Orleans, walked up to the Press Street Depot ticket counter and bought a first-class seat on the 4:15 p.m. train. There was nothing particularly extraordinary or even interesting about a man buying a ticket on the East Louisiana Local, as any onlooker would ...
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 ...
In his April 8 New York Times column, Jamelle Bouie accuses the Supreme Court of being focused on "the interests and prerogatives of powerful political minorities—you might call them factions—that seek to dominate others free of federal interference." Bouie says that Americans frustrated with the Court might wish to get rid of judicial revi ...
It is with some trepidation that the nation approaches the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, which begin today. Will these hearings descend into a Twitter-mobbing reality TV show, or will they focus on the qualifications of Judge Jackson? Americans have good reason to pay attention. For better or worse, the re ...
During the tour to promote his new book, The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer voiced his opposition to court packing. In an interview with NPR, Breyer bashed the idea of Congress "packing" the Court with extra seats in an attempt to change the ideological direction of ...
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services, affirming what Pacific Legal Foundation has argued on behalf of landowners for nearly a year—that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lacked the constitutional authority to enforce its nationwide eviction mo ...
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a victory for property owners with their decision in Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid. The Supreme Court affirmed that the government cannot force people to allow third parties to trespass on their property. In 2015, union activists stormed Cedar Point Nursery to harass the farm workers ...
In Weyerhaeuser v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Supreme Court held that land designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as “critical habitat” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) mu…
Perhaps one of the worst accusations that can be thrown at a judge is that they’re inconsistent, since it implies that the judge is ruling according to his or her whim rather than the rule of law. F…
Would a win for the plaintiffs challenging race-preferential admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina be an anti-democratic result — an example of how, as progressive legal comment…
Presidents of both parties wrongly have expanded the unilateral executive policy playbook, but President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are still teaching a master class in unaccounta…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) must be held accountable for its open defiance of the Supreme Court’s directives. For decades, the FTC relied on a statute authorizing “permanent injunctions” …
Should racial preferences in university admissions be legal? The U.S. Supreme Court has an opportunity to revisit that hotly debated question if it decides to take up Students for Fair Admissions v. H…
The free, non-harmful, and productive use of private property is a cornerstone of the American Dream. And proper regulation, to prevent harmful uses of property, is consistent with this principle. But…
The Supreme Court convenes today for the start of its October 2021 term, in person for the first time since March 2020, when the pandemic drove the justices to — literally — phone it in. This year…
Nearly 15 years ago, the efforts of Chantell and Mike Sackett to build their family home in a residential neighborhood of Priest Lake, Idaho, were put on indefinite hold. That is because the Environme…
To anyone considering donating to a nonprofit organization (and I know a few good ones!), I have some great news: The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld your constitutional right to privacy of association….
According to recent surveys, free speech is losing favor among college students. While supporting free expression in general terms, students prefer to carve out exceptions to censor speech that offend…
PLF attorneys are available for speaking engagements and media interviews on cases at the Supreme Court.
To book a speaker, email [email protected]gal.org. 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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