Articles

Author: Brian T. Hodges Earlier today, Washington’s Supreme Court granted review of a petition asking whether the Legislature can enact a bill that would operate retroactively to wipe out several years of final judicial decisions. Last year, Pacific Legal Foundation successfully argued that Kitsap County, Wash. failed to comply with the ...

Author: Ralph W. Kasarda In an earlier post on the Liberty Blog, I described how the Ninth Circuit had ordered the parties in Farrakhan v. Gregoire to submit briefs setting forth their respective positions on whether the case should be reheard.  After considering those briefs, the Ninth Circuit has in fact ordere ...

Author: Ralph W. Kasarda Last week the Pacific Legal Foundation and Center for Equal Opportunity filed an amicus brief in support of the State of Washington in Farrakhan v. Gregoire.  That case concerns an attempt by convicted criminals to nullify a section of the Washington State Constitution that prohibits felons from voting.  (Previo ...

Author: Brian T. Hodges Washington’s Growth Management Act (GMA) envisions a scheme where every city and county, in every nook and cranny of the state, adopts land use regulations responsive to a host of general societal interests  (e.g, affordable housing, preserving property rights, protecting rural lands from urban development, prote ...

The Ninth Circuit rattled the entire timber industry earlier this year when it held that channeled runoff from forest roads must be regulated as industrial discharge in Northwest Environmental Defense Center v. Brown.  That’s because the court’s decision could force the forest products sector – from large corporations to small pr ...

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 … ...

At PLF, we litigate for judicial acceptance of the idea that property owners should be allowed to reasonably use their property without undue interference from the government.  Many of our clients, such as Wendy Birnbaum, believe in this principle, but find themselves tangled in red tape when they actually exercise their property rights. Ms. Birnb ...

Bellevue, Washington; June 4, 2012: This month marks the kickoff of the 20th anniversary celebrations for Pacific Legal Foundation’s first regional office — its Pacific Northwest (PNW) Center, headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. The founding of the PNW Center in 1992 was a major milestone in PLF’s history, giving added momentum to ...

A few days ago, I wrote about Lemire v. Washington Department of Ecology and the exciting possibility that the Supreme Court of Washington might accept the Court of Appeals’ invitation to hear the case.  Well, it didn’t take long for the Supreme Court to act.  The Court accepted certification today, meaning it will decide the … ...