Articles

In 2012, Oregon-based Scott Timber Co. purchased a contract from the federal Bureau of Land Management to harvest 187 acres of a western Oregon forest designated for timber harvesting. As part of the sale, the Bureau prepared an environmental assessment and a "Finding of No Significant Impact" pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA ...

We received an adverse ruling in our lawsuit on behalf of David Hansen, which challenged a ruling by the Oregon Board of Architects that David practiced unlicensed architecture when he created marketing drawings.  These drawings were not blueprints or plans; they were meant to help a property development company attract retailers to potential devel ...

Late last week, Oregon's court of appeals issued its long-awaited decision in the case, Kramer v. City of Lake Oswego—a case in which two public access activists shockingly claimed that the "public trust doctrine" should be extended to create easements across dry, upland property so that the public can gain access "to . . . navigable waters through ...

The Oregonian has published my op-ed on PLF client David Hansen, who was fined $30,000 for making marketing drawings without an architect's license.  As I write in the op-ed: David's story is just one example in a trend of licensing bodies interpreting their authority broadly to prevent people from competing with licensees. Both ends of the politic ...

Though occupational licensing laws are often justified in terms of health or safety, studies show that licensing regimes are more often bare attempts by entrenched business interests to protect their market share.  The result of such crony laws is that entrepreneurs are barred from pursuing an honest living, with no corresponding benefit to the pub ...

PLF and Western Mining Alliance have filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit case Bohmker v. Oregon. In the brief, we argue that federal mining policy preempts Oregon's ban on a federally-approved and encouraged mining practice. Part of having a federalist system of government is deciding which level of government gets final say when federal an ...

caption id="attachment_40734" align="alignleft" width="222" Photo courtesy of FWS/caption The Center for Biological Diversity is threatening to sue the Fish & Wildlife Service for not imposing ruinous and unnecessary restrictions on private property owners throughout 37 states to protect the Northern long-eared bat. It contends that heavy-hand ...

In Oregon—as in most states—a landowner whose property abuts a highway has a right to directly access that road. Thus, an abutting owner is entitled to just compensation when the state acquires the landowner's right of access in an eminent domain action. Or at least that's how the story is supposed to go. But, as we are all well-aware, the gover ...

Today, PLF attorneys filed an amicus brief with the Oregon Court of Appeals in Kramer v. City of Lake Oswego—a case in which two public access activists argue that the "public trust doctrine" should be extended to create easements across dry, upland property so that the public can gain access "to . . . navigable waters throughout the State or Orego ...