Articles

A win for property owners throughout California

January 02, 2018 | By JONATHAN WOOD

For years, Oakland has treated small property owners as a piggy bank, demanding ever growing penalties for minor, alleged building code violations and denying property owners any legitimate opportunity to defend themselves. But thanks to a PLF victory in the California Court of Appeal, that abuse will come to an end. … ...

Articles

NRO piece on PLF suit challenging Oakland's public art exaction

July 31, 2015 | By TODD GAZIANO

Earlier this week, National Review Online ran my piece on PLF’s lawsuit against the City of Oakland. The lawsuit challenges an illegal ordinance requiring builders of residential and commercial projects in the City to either produce public art displays on the building sites or pay a fee for local artists to create such a display … ...

Articles

Is the Constitution cooler than public art? Not in Oakland

July 29, 2015 | By J. DAVID BREEMER

Watch out! The government-subsidized artists in the San Francisco Bay Area are coming!  As this news article explains, Bay Area artists are not happy about Pacific Legal Foundation’s recent legal challenge to the City of Oakland’s compelled public art ordinance.  The ordinance forces new developers to put public art on their propert ...

Articles

Contracts : A trade analogy

December 02, 2014 | By WENCONG FA

Fans of the Oakland Athletics know that the team has just made a big trade. Supporters of Pacific Legal Foundation know that PLF’s Free Enterprise Project defends freedom of contract across the country, including the right of parties to be bound by the words of the contract instead of vague notions of abstract justice. … ...

Articles

PLF defends property owners’ rights from bureaucratic abuse

August 19, 2014 | By JONATHAN WOOD

In 2010, the Alameda County Grand Jury sharply condemned Oakland’s Building Services Division — which enforces building code violations — concluding that it had created an “atmosphere of hostility and intimidation towards property owners.” In the four years since, little has changed. PLF has filed an opening brief in ...

Articles

Is it discrimination to not hire someone because of their criminal record?

August 20, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Joshua Thompson This story of a lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California has recently picked up some national attention.   The plaintiffs are alleging that First Transit is discriminating on the basis of race because they do both credit and criminal background checks before deciding whether to hire someone. ...