Articles

Simone and Lyder Johnson intimately know why individuals need steadfast protection against government power. Their case, which they won at the trial level, will soon be heard by the Florida Court of Appeal.  In Pacetta, LLC v. Town of Ponce Inlet, the trial court determined that the town made numerous promises to entice the Johnsons … ...

Sunday, I saw school children dressed in red, white, and blue, lining a sidewalk, holding patriotic signs that encouraged people to vote. The overwhelming sentiment was that voting is not only an American privilege, but an essential ingredient to freedom. While voting is a privilege, it can lead to the same sorts of excesses as … ...

Friday, Pacific Legal Foundation filed an amicus brief with a Florida appellate court in a shocking case of local government gone awry: The Town of Ponce Inlet v. Pacetta, LLC. According to the trial court, the Town Council broke its promises of fair dealing, instead tying the hands of developers who had already invested millions and started  ...

South Carolina’s legislature is looking for ways to protect its wetlands from development by increasing a deed tax to fund the purchase of development rights to vital wetlands. Although problematic in other ways, such an approach is preferable to the government’s usual tactic of increasing regulations on private property owners, not onl ...

Today, PLF filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to have the West Indian Manatee and subspecies thereof, including the Florida Manatee, downlisted from endangered to threatened. Five years ago, the FWS concluded in its review of the species that the manatee was very unlikely to become endangered anytime in the next 100 ...

Yesterday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announced its intent to downlist the wood stork from endangered to threatened. This comes after years of arm-twisting by PLF and its client, the Florida Homebuilders Association (FHA), to get the Service to abide by its statutory duty to review species on the endangered and threatened lists, ...

On Tuesday, January 15, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear PLF’s case Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District. youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8-XDD6KyWaQ#!/youtube Yesterday, we filed the reply brief, explaining: This kind of heavy handedness—exacting as much property out of a permit applicant a ...

This Tuesday, PLF attorney Paul Beard will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to protect property owners from unfair government demands made during the permitting process. PLF’s client, Coy Koontz, Jr., is fighting a Florida agency’s decision that conditioned issuance of land use permits upon Koontz agreeing to pay for improvements on public l ...

Friday, the Palm Beach Post ran an op-ed by Alan DeSerio, managing attorney for PLF’s Atlantic Center in Florida. DeSerio responds to an op-ed run by the paper, which portrayed an imaginary version of PLF’s involvement in the FWS’s proposed downlisting of the wood stork from “endangered” to “threatened.” In ...