Articles

Weekly litigation report — October 20, 2018

October 19, 2018 | By JAMES BURLING

PLF to National Park Service: Keep the National Mall Open to All Kinds of Speech The National Mall and Memorial Parks are “the premier national civic space for public gatherings including First Amendment activities, national celebrations … and national mourning.” In these venues, “the constitutional rights of speech and peaceful ...

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Weekly litigation update — July 28, 2016

July 28, 2018 | By JAMES BURLING

Appeal filed to rescue vaping lawsuit from being sucked into the Swamp When PLF first developed its litigation strategy to challenge unconstitutionally promulgated rules, a core component of that strategy was filing three simultaneous lawsuits in three district courts challenging the FDA’s vaping regulation. But the federal government would p ...

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Weekly litigation report — July 21, 2018

July 21, 2018 | By JAMES BURLING

Total victory in the Starry Night House mural case This week the City of Mount Dora settled with PLF plaintiffs Nancy Nemhauser and Lubomir Jastrzebski in a one-sided agreement that saves the family’s Van Gogh-inspired mural. The city agreed to drop its enforcement action and all fines, leaving the family free to complete the mural … ...

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Idaho joins PLF’s defense of the Congressional Review Act

July 16, 2018 | By JONATHAN WOOD

The Congressional Review Act should be one of the nation’s least controversial laws. To restore some measure of democratic accountability to the administrative state, it requires federal agencies to submit the rules they impose on us to our elected representatives for review before they go into effect. That’s it! The law imposes a simpl ...

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17 states : The time has come to reconsider Chevron deference and this is the case to do it with

July 06, 2018 | By JONATHAN WOOD

As the President prepares to nominate a new Supreme Court justice, one of the major issues likely to turn on that choice is the fate of Chevron deference. According to that infamous doctrine, courts must defer to agency’s interpretations of the statutes they administer unless that interpretation is patently unreasonable. In practice, courts h ...

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SCOTUS avoids the administrative elephant in the room

April 26, 2018 | By BRIAN HODGES

Earlier this week, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, upholding by a 7-2 margin the inter partes review process used by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to invalidate already-issued patent claims. At issue was whether this process must be heard by an … ...

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Asking agencies to follow the rules isn’t asking too much

April 11, 2018 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Accountability is sorely lacking in the administrative state. Unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats make decisions significantly affecting our daily lives with too little involvement from our elected officials. The Congressional Review Act was intended to restore at least some degree of democratic accountability to the administrative process. It req ...

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Weekly litigation report — March 10, 2018

March 10, 2018 | By JAMES BURLING

Supreme Court grants hugely important property rights case! For over thirty years PLF attorneys have been trying to put an end to the infamous “Williamson County” rule that stops property owners from going to federal court to vindicate their constitutionally guaranteed property rights. Named after a 1985 case where the Court refused to ...

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Corps cannot treat permafrost as navigable waters

February 15, 2018 | By JEFF MCCOY

Today, PLF filed an opening brief in the Ninth Circuit in Tin Cup, LLC v. Army Corps of Engineers. The case is brought by a small, family-owned pipe fabrication company that wishes to relocate to a new site for its expanding business. The company has not been able to start the relocation, however, because the … ...