Articles

Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court heard Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, argued by PLF attorney Paul Beard. A local government agency denied Coy Koontz a building permit because he refused to agree to unreasonable permit conditions. PLF argued that this permit denial was unconstitutional. In the hearing, the Court conside ...

NPR’s All Things Considered interviewed PLF’s Alan DeSerio about the wood stork’s imminent change from “endangered” to “threatened” status.  As I wrote last month, the proposed status change comes after years of PLF pressuring the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to follow its own rules: If an animal is no l ...

Florida Voices published a great op-ed by NFIB’s Karen Harned, discussing PLF’s pending U.S. Supreme Court case, Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District. The op-ed discusses how the case relates to the small business community and to essential constitutional rights. Ms. Harned writes: It is true that for most Americans, the ...

Last year, PLF filed an amicus brief supporting the constitutionality of Indiana’s voucher program. Today, the Indiana Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion holding that the program is indeed constitutional.  Indiana’s voucher program is one of the most expansive school choice reforms in the country, permitting any free- or reduced- ...

A recent New York Times article reports that many scholars believe the Roberts Court is more pro-business than its predecessors. To support this claim, they point mostly to procedural decisions, especially limits the Court has put on class action lawsuits. It is bizarre to call this Court more “pro-business” than its predecessors simply ...

Yesterday, PLF’s Litigation Director Jim Burling debated Richard Grosso of Nova Southeastern University about property rights and case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District. In that case, Coy Koontz applied for a permit to develop 3.7 of the 15 acres he owned in Orange County. The local &# ...

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday refused to hear the case of Patterson v. City of Bellmead. The Pattersons were asking for the chance to prove their allegations that a city kennel-licensing law is unconstitutional. That may seem like a little thing at first, but as I wrote a few weeks ago, the Pattersons’ case … ...

In Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management, PLF won one of the most important property rights decisions in decades.  As we have described in more detail elsewhere, the victory means that the government can no longer use the permitting process as an opportunity to shake down property owners for money, land, or other goods. … ...

Last week, the internet was buzzing about high school history textbooks that diminish or mis-characterize the Second Amendment.  What some of those reports have not mentioned, however, is that the same books fail to even mention that the Bill of Rights protects private property from government theft. One book, The Americans, a history book for &# ...