Articles

Is plowing a field “dredging and filling” under the Clean Water Act? Food and Drug Administration wants Texas business owner to litigate her civil rights case in D.C. Eleventh Circuit vindicates Chmielewski family’s property rights PLF urges Supreme Court to take up hair braiders’ case Supreme Court strikes down anti-gamblin ...

Forbes writer George Leef published an article on Brott v. United States, a case before the Supreme Court in which PLF participated as amicus. … ...

If the federal government takes your property, who would you want to decide how much it owes you: the government that took your stuff or a jury of your peers? … ...

Earlier today, we learned that Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed a jury award for millions of dollars to a family that had its property rights basically ignored by a small town on Florida’s east coast. The family relied upon the town council of Ponce Inlet’s invitation to develop several pieces of property at gre ...

Yesterday, the Seattle Times ran my op-ed about our lawsuit challenging a Seattle law that forbids landlords from choosing their own tenants. In Yim v. City of Seattle, we argue that the city has violated due process rights and rights against uncompensated government takings. Seattle’s “first in time” rule requires landlords to ...

Kevin Brott wants a jury trial for his Fifth Amendment claim to just compensation. The federal government converted a portion of Brott’s property into a public trail. He wants a jury to gauge compensation rather than a judge who works for his adversary. Sadly, most takings claims against the federal government do not enjoy a jury. We fil ...

School choice supported in Montana PLF sued the Montana Department of Revenue to fight a rule that forbids children who want to attend religious school from getting scholarship assistance. In May 2015, Montana became the 43rd state to adopt a school choice law. The law creates a tax incentive for individuals and businesses to donate money to  ...

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 … ...

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 … ...