Articles

How Judges Brown and Sentelle actually hurt property owners and entrepreneurs

April 23, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Judges Janice Brown and David Sentelle drew attention in the blogosphere last week for their rip-roaring opinion in Hettinga v. United States. The judges were right that courts have abandoned their constitutional duty to protect the rights of property owners and entrepreneurs, by imposing the so-called “rational basis” test under which ...

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Rosen : pay no attention to the Constitution behind the curtain!

May 13, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

In an article for The New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen writes that the recent decision in the Hettinga case has “unmasked” the continuing machinations of Rosen’s “Constitution in Exile” conspiracy. I say his conspiracy because in Rosen’s eyes, the widening circle of lawyers, judges, and law professors who are drawing ...

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Pacific Legal Foundation urges Supreme Court to give business owners their day in court

October 19, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Today, we filed this petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, asking the justices to review a case that severely restricts Americans’ right to challenge the constitutionality of laws. The case, Hettinga v. United States, began when Arizona dairy owners Hein and Ellen Hettinga sued over a federal law that targeted their bu ...

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Why the Second Circuit’s decision striking down DOMA could be bad for economic liberty

October 22, 2012 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Last week the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in Windsor v. United States of America striking down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. In particular, the Court found that Section 3’s denial of federal spousal benefits to legally married same sex couples violated the equal protection component of the ...

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Fifth Circuit : “naked transfers of wealth” are unconstitutional

October 24, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday asked Louisiana state courts to decide whether state regulators have the authority to ban people from selling coffins unless they get a state funeral director’s license. The judges declined to strike down the restriction as unconstitutional because there’s some doubt that the regulators who i ...

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Why the Hettinga case is important

October 31, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Reason’s Damon Root, Instapundit’s Elizabeth Foley, and the Yuma Sun explain why our petition for certiorari in Hettinga v. United States is so important. The case is about more than the legality of federal price-fixing laws for dairies—awful as such laws are. No, this case is about whether people have the right to challenge the cons ...

Articles

Goldwater Institute files brief in support of PLF’s Hettinga petition

November 21, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

The Arizona-based Goldwater Institute today filed this friend-of-the-court brief in support of our petition for certiorari in the case of Hettinga v. United States. We’re urging the High Court to address the question of whether the government can get a rational-basis lawsuit dismissed by simply saying that a challenged law is rational—witho ...

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Cato and IJ file brief supporting PLF's petition in milk price restriction lawsuit

November 21, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Our friends at the Cato Institute and the Institute for Justice filed this brief today in support of our cert. petition in the case of Hein Hettinga. The brief highlights the major problem with the D.C. Circuit’s expansion of the rational basis test: that if allowed to stand, it would present an impenetrable shield against … ...

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Claremont Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence files brief in support of PLF's Hettinga petition

November 23, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

The Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence has filed this friend of the court brief in support of our petition for certiorari in Hettinga v. United States. As the brief points out, this case involves one of the central problems that the Constitution’s authors sought to combat: anti-competitive legislation designed ...