Articles

The tendency for courts to broadly defer to agency decisions frustrates the judiciary’s core function as the adjudicative branch of government. Such deference also frustrates individual rights by sweeping constitutional guarantees under the rug. Take, for example, Washington State’s Growth Management Hearing Board. The legislature creat ...

Yesterday, PLF attorneys filed an amicus brief in support of San Juan County’s shoreline property owners in the case, Common Sense Alliance v. Growth Management Hearings Board. At issue is San Juan County’s update to its critical areas ordinance, which, in part, conditions approval of any new development of a shoreline property upon the ...

Author: Brian T. Hodges In a decision filed last week, Washington’s Court of Appeals recognized that, like Cassandra, whose warning that the Grecian horse spelled doom for Troy, PLF’s successful litigation efforts to constrain government agencies to their strictly defined constitutional and statutory limits has fallen on deaf ears. PLF ...