Articles

PLF Victory! Texas Supreme Court strikes down the state’s “rolling easement” land grab—again

March 30, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Today, the Texas Supreme Court issued its long-awaited final ruling on the legality of that state’s policy of “rolling easements”—i.e., transforming private land into a public beach whenever a storm denudes it of vegetation and makes it into dry sand. PLF challenged this policy on behalf of Carol Severance, who owned parcels al ...

Articles

Severance aftermath : There they go again

April 04, 2012 | By J. DAVID BREEMER

Although it is not entirely unexpected, the handwringing in Texas over the recent Severance beach property rights decision has reached a fever pitch. The decision held, of course, that “Texas does not recognize a rolling beach easement” that turns private land into a public beach the moment the land loses its vegetation and becomes a ...

Articles

There’s nothing activist about saying government must play by the rules.

June 06, 2012 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Recently, bloggers and even the Texas Land Commissioner were decrying several Texas Supreme Court Justices for their “extreme activism” in ruling in favor of property owners in Severance v. Patterson. What was the reason for this outrage? Simple: the Court found that if the state wished to declare that Mrs. Severance’s private pr ...