Articles

Author: Daniel Himebaugh Later this week, we will file an amicus brief in support of a property owner who is now in his sixth year challenging a city ordinance that drastically downzoned his property.  (The case is Thun v. City of Bonney Lake, and we will have more information about it on our website once … ...

Author: Daniel Himebaugh My guest column for the Building Industry Association of Washington's newsletter, Building Insight, appears in the May/June 2011 issue.  In the article, I discuss the onerous nature of Washington's ripeness doctrine as it applies to regulatory takings cases, and argue that courts should follow precedent that o ...

Last week, the Supreme Court of Washington decided not to review the appellate opinion in Thun v. City of Bonney Lake.  The Thun case arose out of the city’s denial of property owner Karl Thun’s application to develop condos on his property in Bonney Lake, Washington.  Thun sued the city under the theory that the … ...

Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Horne v. Department of Agriculture, a case in which California raisin growers sued the Department of Agriculture in federal district court after the Department fined them for refusing to hand over a portion of their raisins to the federal government without compensation. In the federal court, the & ...

Yesterday, Pacific Legal Foundation scored a huge victory for property rights when the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion favoring the property owner in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management Agency. The obvious boon for property owners was that the Court agreed with PLF’s arguments that all conditions imposed on building perm ...

One issue that has received little attention following the oral argument in Horne v. United States Department of Agriculture is the question of what the Hornes’ remedy should be if they prevail. Readers will recall that the Supreme Court last Wednesday considered a depression-era law requiring raisin farmers, like plaintiffs Marvin and Laura ...

Yesterday, PLF filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Second District Court of Appeal in GolfRock, LLC v. Lee County.  This case demonstrates what happens when courts fail to recognize that a  property rights claim is “ripe” (i.e., adequately developed for the court to determine the merits of the claim). The owners of GolfRock, LLC ...

This week, PLF attorneys filed a Petition for Certiorari asking the Supreme Court to review the case of Arrigoni Enterprises LLC v. Town of Durham,  a ten -year regulatory takings dispute arising from a Connecticut town’s denial of a property owner’s development plans. The Petition specifically urges the Court to take the case fo ...

Earlier today, we learned that Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed a jury award for millions of dollars to a family that had its property rights basically ignored by a small town on Florida’s east coast. The family relied upon the town council of Ponce Inlet’s invitation to develop several pieces of property at gre ...