Author: Brian T. Hodges Kipp and Marilyn Dunlap bought a vacant residential lot in Nooksack, Washington with the dream of building their home there. But the city had other ideas. You see, Nooksack slough runs through the middle of the Dunlaps’ lot, and the city declared that land adjacent to streams constitutes an environmentall ...
Author: Brian T. Hodges Imagine, if you will, a criminal defendant on trial for robbery. In his defense, the mugger argues that when he pointed a pistol at Joe citizen’s head and demanded “your money or your life, ” he wasn’t stealing. No, stealing is such an ugly word. The mugger was simply allowing Joe ...
Author: Brian T. Hodges Earlier this month, Washington’s Supreme Court issued its long-awaited inverse condemnation decision in Fitzpatrick v. Okanogan County. The case arose from a joint state/local project to protect a state highway from flood damage by diking the Methow River. The diking project, however, blocked the r ...
Author: Brian T. Hodges Earlier this year, PLF stepped in to help Kipp and Marilyn Dunlap protect themselves against an uncompensated taking of their vacant residential lot in Nooksack, Washington (located just south of the Canadian border). As you may recall, the Dunlaps purchased a quarter-acre lot with the dream of building their home the ...
Author: Anne Hayes If you scroll through the staff photos on our website, you will find Robert Thomas as the attorney who heads up PLF's Hawaii Center. Although Mr. Thomas works with PLF, he hold the title of Director at a private law firm in Hawaii and specializes in land use and appellate law. He … ...
PLF colleague Jennifer Fry recently posted on the frustrations of a Sacramento family after their home burned down. FEMA’s de-certification of the levees protecting their neighborhood resulted in a building moratorium that prevents the Taylors from rebuilding their fire-destroyed home, even though they have insurance to do so. But what ...
We previously reported on the case of Biron v. City of Redding, in which an apartment building owner is seeking compensation under inverse condemnation for damage that the city’s storm drain system did during a rain storm. The issue in the case is what level of fault the Birons must prove in order to recover. … ...
Obamacare back to the Supreme Court We filed our petition for cert in Sissel v. United States this week, asking the Supreme Court to take the case. As our blog explains, when Justice Roberts upheld the law because it was a “tax” and not a “penalty,” we realized that if the individual mandate (as well … ...
Property rights — mapping the property away We filed this amicus brief in Kirby v. North Carolina supporting the rights of landowners. In a scenario common in many states, transportation agencies know they will likely be building new roads and highways, they have a pretty good idea where those roads might go, but they don’t … ...