Articles

The government can’t "regulate away" the right to just compensation

July 02, 2013 | By BRIAN HODGES

PLF attorneys filed this brief today in support of Arkansas landowner Mike Mehaffy’s petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States.  Mr. Mehaffy owns property on the Arkansas River in North Little Rock.  He acquired it in 2000, and in 2006 he applied to the Army Corps of Engineers for a Clean … ...

Articles

President’s weekly report — July 26, 2013

July 26, 2013 | By ROB RIVETT

Property Rights — Victory in North Carolina We finally put an end to the Williamson County remove-and-dismiss gambit in the 4th Circuit with a decision in Sansotta v. Town of Nags Head.  As explained in our blog post, Williamson County was a Supreme Court decision that held that a landowner must sue a local or state … ...

Articles

President's weekly report — January 10, 2014

January 10, 2014 | By ROB RIVETT

Environment — Clean Water Act We filed this reply brief in Hawkes v. United States, the case where a peat farmer is trying to establish that his property is not subject to the jurisdiction of the Corps because it is not connected to a navigable waterway.  The owner is trying to challenge the Corps’ Jurisdictional Determination in co ...

Articles

Déjà vu : another court disregards precedent and property rights

April 21, 2014 | By JONATHAN WOOD

More than 10 years ago, PLF won an important property rights victory in the U.S. Supreme Court — Palazzolo v. Rhode Island. That case held that government cannot “put an expiration date on the Takings Clause” by forbidding any property owner from challenging the constitutionality of any regulation that existed at the time they pur ...

Articles

Public interest litigation, Senator Whitehouse, and the Kavanaugh hearings

September 05, 2018 | By JAMES BURLING

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is not a fan of Pacific Legal Foundation. In the past he has accused us, wrongly, of being a “creepy front group” in the thrall of large corporate deniers of global climate change. We weren’t impressed when we learned that Senator Whitehouse called for criminal investigations under the Racketeer Influenc ...

Articles

Weekly litigation report — January 19, 2019

January 19, 2019 | By JAMES BURLING

Oral argument held again in Knick at the Supreme Court On January 16, the Supreme Court heard reargument in Knick v. Scott Township, the case where Rose Knick sued her town after it declared the public could trespass on her property in order to search for some old stones, claimed to be colonial-era graves. Knick … ...