Articles

Author: Brian T. Hodges The Ninth Circuit set Leu v. International Boundary Commission for oral argument on May 5, 2010 in Seattle. In 2006, retired couple Shirley and Herbert Leu built a small garden retaining wall in their back yard to stop their soil from wasting into a ditch. They had no idea that they … ...

Author: Brian T. Hodges Imagine, if you will, a criminal defendant on trial for robbery.  In his defense, the mugger argues that when he pointed a pistol at Joe citizen’s head and demanded “your money or your life, ” he wasn’t stealing.  No, stealing is such an ugly word.  The mugger was simply allowing Joe ...

Author: Brian T. Hodges There has been much to do lately about Watson’s Jeopardy! victory over a couple of really smart humans.  For those who have been … well … hiking in Greenland or something, Watson is an artificial intelligence program that was designed to bridge the gap between data retrieval programs like Google and ...

Author: Daniel Himebaugh PLF recently filed this amicus brief in a case called Laurel Park Community, LLC v. City of Tukwila.  In our brief, we support several mobile home park owners in their effort to overturn a city ordinance that essentially prohibits them from using their property for anything but mobile home parks.  The ordinance ...

Author: Brian T. Hodges Earlier today, PLF filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case, Kitsap Alliance for Property Owners v. Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board.  The petition asks the Court to review a Washington appellate decision holding that a city or county can force … ...

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 ...

Attorneys with Pacific Legal Foundation petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the takings case of their client, Coy Koontz Jr. as representative of his father’s estate. Before Coy Koontz Sr. died, he was blocked from developing commercial property that he owned in Orange County, because of confiscatory and unconstitutional demands by the ...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument today in Laurel Park Community, LLC v. City of Tumwater.  As readers will recall, the issue in this case is whether a city ordinance that prohibits mobile home park owners from using their property for almost anything but a mobile home park constitutes a taking, … ...

A taking occasioned by a gradual physical process, such as erosion or inundation, presents the landowner with a particularly difficult problem.  How can the owner comply with the 6 year statute of limitations for filing a taking claim against the federal government when he does not even know that his land is being taken?  PLF … ...