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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 … ...

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A case that is for the birds flies to the Supreme Court

October 19, 2017 | By MARK MILLER

This past week Cato Institute, Southeastern Legal Foundation, and the NFIB Small Business Legal Center filed amicus briefs supporting our Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the Ganson v. City of Marathon regulatory takings case. We’ve previously written about the case here, here, here, here, and here. In the Ganson case, government o ...

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Texas court finds agency can't deny pecan farmers' water rights without compensation

August 29, 2013 | By JENNIFER THOMPSON

Last October, we related the story of Glenn and JoLynn Bragg, pecan farmers in Medina County, Texas, who suffered from a state agency’s taking of their water rights.  PLF filed an amicus brief in the case, supporting the Braggs’ argument that the agency, the Edwards Aquifer Authority, could not regulate away the Braggs’ common la ...

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Government's noxious nuisance defense defeated after citrus trees destroyed

May 13, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Jim Burling A Florida Court of Appeals held on Wednesday, in Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services v. Toby Borgoff, that the deliberate destruction of over 100,000 healthy citrus trees constituted a compensable taking. The trees had been destroyed because other nearby trees were infected with citrus canker – a disease that dis ...