Articles

How Judges Brown and Sentelle actually hurt property owners and entrepreneurs

April 23, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Judges Janice Brown and David Sentelle drew attention in the blogosphere last week for their rip-roaring opinion in Hettinga v. United States. The judges were right that courts have abandoned their constitutional duty to protect the rights of property owners and entrepreneurs, by imposing the so-called “rational basis” test under which ...

Articles

There’s nothing activist about saying government must play by the rules.

June 06, 2012 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Recently, bloggers and even the Texas Land Commissioner were decrying several Texas Supreme Court Justices for their “extreme activism” in ruling in favor of property owners in Severance v. Patterson. What was the reason for this outrage? Simple: the Court found that if the state wished to declare that Mrs. Severance’s private pr ...

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Pacific Legal Foundation urges Supreme Court to give business owners their day in court

October 19, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Today, we filed this petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, asking the justices to review a case that severely restricts Americans’ right to challenge the constitutionality of laws. The case, Hettinga v. United States, began when Arizona dairy owners Hein and Ellen Hettinga sued over a federal law that targeted their bu ...

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Why the Hettinga case is important

October 31, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Reason’s Damon Root, Instapundit’s Elizabeth Foley, and the Yuma Sun explain why our petition for certiorari in Hettinga v. United States is so important. The case is about more than the legality of federal price-fixing laws for dairies—awful as such laws are. No, this case is about whether people have the right to challenge the cons ...

Articles

Goldwater Institute files brief in support of PLF’s Hettinga petition

November 21, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

The Arizona-based Goldwater Institute today filed this friend-of-the-court brief in support of our petition for certiorari in the case of Hettinga v. United States. We’re urging the High Court to address the question of whether the government can get a rational-basis lawsuit dismissed by simply saying that a challenged law is rational—witho ...

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Cato and IJ file brief supporting PLF's petition in milk price restriction lawsuit

November 21, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Our friends at the Cato Institute and the Institute for Justice filed this brief today in support of our cert. petition in the case of Hein Hettinga. The brief highlights the major problem with the D.C. Circuit’s expansion of the rational basis test: that if allowed to stand, it would present an impenetrable shield against … ...

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Claremont Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence files brief in support of PLF's Hettinga petition

November 23, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

The Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence has filed this friend of the court brief in support of our petition for certiorari in Hettinga v. United States. As the brief points out, this case involves one of the central problems that the Constitution’s authors sought to combat: anti-competitive legislation designed ...

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President's weekly report — January 18, 2013

January 18, 2013 | By ROB RIVETT

Property Rights — United States Supreme Court We had our argument in the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday in Koontz v. St. Johns Water Management District.  You can read the transcript here and listen to an audio of the argument here.  As you will see, this was a very “hot” bench, with the justices … ...

Articles

Businesses should have the right to make their case

May 01, 2013 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

The National Law Journal has published my article about a growing problem in federal courts: the tendency of judges to dismiss lawsuits brought by business owners on the theory that they can’t possibly prove their cases anyway, given how biased the courts are against economic freedom. For decades now, federal courts have applied the notion & ...