Articles

Earlier this week, the California Senate Judiciary Committee voted down Assembly Bill 2226, which would have amended the state’s government code to create a strong presumption that he who holds title is the beneficial owner of the property as well.  The issue came up in the context of U2 bandmember David Evans’ (The Edge) attempt R ...

Texas isn’t the only state  that has been attempting to convert private beachfront land into public property through the use of novel legal theories. North Carolina and its political subdivisions have also moved in the same, unfortunate direction.  And once again, PLF is going to court on behalf of owners of beachfront property to try R ...

Today, the Texas Supreme Court handed down a short but sweet victory for Texas property owners who had their land and beach homes taken for use as a public beach, without compensation, by the State of Texas and Village of Surfside. The case arises from a long running dispute in Surfside, Texas, a small, but popular coastal area. At … ...

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 &# ...

In  the latest development in California’s water wars, the California Court of Appeals issued a significant decision yesterday in Property Reserve, Inc. v. Superior Court, 2014 WL 978309 (Cal Ct. App. 2014). The opinion limits the State’s ability to enter and test private land it hopes to condemn for a public water project of stat ...

Today, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a favorable published decision in Sherman v. Town of Chester, a case in which PLF filed an amicus brief.  In the case, a New York Town gave a property owner the run-around on his development plans for a decade, changing the rules every time he presented a plan for formal … ...

Earlier this week, the United States Forest Service published for public comment proposed changes to the agency’s manual governing special use permits for ski resorts on National Forest land.  The proposal comes a few years after the ski industry successfully sued the Forest Service for trying to implement similar proposals without first mak ...

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. … ...

One issue that has received little attention following the oral argument in Horne v. United States Department of Agriculture is the question of what the Hornes’ remedy should be if they prevail. Readers will recall that the Supreme Court last Wednesday considered a depression-era law requiring raisin farmers, like plaintiffs Marvin and Laura ...