Real Estate & Property Law

Amicus Brief In NY Court Of Appeals In Goldstein/Atlantic Yards Case: NY's Public Use Clause Prohibits Judicial Rubber Stamp Of Takings

Posted on September 02, 2009
Willets Point United has filed an amicus brief supporting their fellow New York City property owners in the public use case now pending in the New York Court of Appeals regarding the Atlantic Yards "redevelopment" project in Brooklyn, Goldstein v....

Kelo Reality Check: "Belief" And "Hope" Aren't All They're Cracked Up To Be

Posted on September 01, 2009
Justice Stevens' majority opinion in Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005) held the government's public use determination is off-limits if the determination was the result of a "comprehensive plan," regardless of whether than plan has any...

Entering Our Fourth Year

Posted on August 31, 2009
Happy Birthday to us: we uploaded our first posts on this blog three years ago this day. In lawblog years, that's quite a while. If you can't already tell by the nearly 900 posts during this time, we enjoy doing...

Sunday Round-Up

Posted on August 30, 2009
What we're reading today: "Setting boundaries for property rights" -- an opinion piece in the National Law Journal by our friend Timothy Sandefur about the Florida beachfront takings case, Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection,...

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New Cert Petition: Is Requiring Shopping Centers To Allow Adverse Speech A Taking?

Posted on August 29, 2009
In United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America Local 848 v. National Labor Relations Bd., 540 F.3d 957 (9th Cir. 2008), the Ninth Circuit held that six rules applied by shopping centers to restrict picketing and handbilling by union...

First Circuit: Requiring Hospital To Provide "Free" Medical Services Not A Taking

Posted on August 27, 2009
In a case that's highly topical given the current health care debate, in Franklin Memorial Hospital v. Harvey, No. 08-2550 (Aug. 5, 2009), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that Maine's requirement that hospitals provide free...

NY Times On Property Owner Amici In Beachfront Takings Case

Posted on August 26, 2009
The New York Times' Greenwire blog posts Property Rights Groups Assemble Support in Regulatory Takings Case, about amici support in Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009)...

Op-Ed On Eminent Domain Abuse At NY's Atlantic Yards

Posted on August 25, 2009
In yesterday's New York Daily News, Dana Berliner of the Institute for Justice -- the good folks who brought us Kelo -- published "End eminent domain abuse: N.Y.'s highest court should rule against Bruce Ratner." The latest Atlantic Yards case,...

HAWSCT Oral Argument Recording In Voter Registration Residency Appeal

Posted on August 24, 2009
The recording of the oral argument in Dupree v. Hiraga, No 29464 has been posted. It is available here (caution, massive 34mb mp3 download). (Oral arguments in Hawaii's appellate courts are not reduced to a written transcript, and the electronic...

Amici Briefs Supporting The Property Owners In Beach Takings Case

Posted on August 21, 2009
More briefs have been filed in support of the Petitioner/property owner in Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009). Oregonians in Action Legal Center Save Our Beaches and the...

Even More Amici Supporting The Property Owners In Beach Takings Case

Posted on August 21, 2009
Confirming that Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009) is shaping up to be one of the most interesting cases in the Supreme Court's term, even more amici briefs...

NJ Appeals Ct: Eminent Domain Pretext Determined Objectively, By Context

Posted on August 21, 2009
In an expansive opinion in Township of Readington v. Solberg Aviation Co., No. A-3083-07T3 (Aug. 19, 2009), the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court determined that a municipality abused its condemnation power when it attempted to take property...

Appellate Oral Argument: Is Intending To Live Somewhere Enough To Be "Residing" There?

Posted on August 20, 2009
The Supreme Court of Hawaii will hear oral arguments on Thursday, August 20, 2009, from 9:00-10:00 in Dupree v. Hiraga, No 29464, the appeal regarding whether the State Board of Registration (County of Maui) correctly concluded that a Maui County...

Follow Hawaii Supreme Court Oral Argument Live By Twitter On Voter Registration Case

Posted on August 20, 2009
My colleague Mark Murakami who blogs at hawaiioceanlaw.com will be covering today's oral argument in the Hawaii Supreme Court case Dupree v. Hiraga, No 29464, the appeal regarding whether the State Board of Registration (County of Maui) correctly concluded that...

Cato Institute And Pacific Legal Foundation Amicus Brief In Beach Takings Case

Posted on August 20, 2009
The Cato Institute, the National Federation of Independent Business Legal Center, and the Pacific Legal Foundation have filed this amicus brief supporting the property owners in t Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, No...

Petitioner's Merits Brief In SCOTUS Beachfront Takings Case

Posted on August 14, 2009
The property owners have filed their merits brief in the beachfront takings case, Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009). The case presents three questions: The Florida Supreme Court...

Latest In Maui Affordable Housing Exaction Case: Cross-Motions On Due Process

Posted on August 10, 2009
Here's the latest in the Maui affordable housing case now being litigated in the U.S. District Court, Kamaole Pointe Development LP v. County of Maui, No. 07-00447 DAE (D. Haw.). The case is a challenge to the County of Maui's...

Navigational Servitude May Not Be A "Blanket Exception" To The Takings Clause...But It's Still A Big One

Posted on August 08, 2009
In Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164 (1979), a case won by my Damon Key partners Charlie Bocken and Diane Hastert, the Court held the navigational servitude does not create a "blanket exception to the Takings Clause whenever...

New Hawaii Appellate Law Blog

Posted on August 08, 2009
Kauai attorney Charles A. Foster, who already covers legal issues (and more) on his Planet Kauai blog, has been lured over completely to the Dark Side and has launched a law-only blog about Hawaii appellate law, named -- appropriately enough...

Report: Beachfront Takings Case May Be Sotomayor's First Test

Posted on August 07, 2009
From The Destin Log, the hometown newspaper from the location of the U.S. Supreme Court case on judicial takings and beachfront land (Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009)), comes the...

Programming Note: hawaiilawyer.com email servers are up

Posted on August 06, 2009
Update: 8/6/2009, 8:00 a.m. HST: our servers are up. If you sent something earlier but didn't get a response, please resend. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 8/6/2009, 5:00 a.m. HST: We're not ignoring you: the hawaiilawyer.com email servers are down for the second night...

Property Owner's Brief In Atlantic Yards Appeal

Posted on August 03, 2009
A press release from Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn links to the opening brief filed recently by the property owners who object to the taking of their property for the Atlantic Yards "redevelopment" project in Brooklyn in Goldstein v. New York...

ABA Section Of State & Local Gov't Law - Condemnation Law Committee

Posted on August 03, 2009
These past few days, I've been attending the annual meeting of the ABA in Chicago. It was a chance to meet new colleagues, associate faces with those whom I've only had e-contact, and reacquaint myself with old friends. I'm also...

"Shoot, Move & Communicate" En Route To The ABA Annual Meeting

Posted on July 31, 2009
Years ago, during my brief foray in the army, we employed a pretty simple job description: shoot, move, and communicate. This same axiom is an apt summary of our core mission as lawyers: win the case, go where the action...

Second Circuit: State Court Statute Of Limitations Dismissal No Bar To Federal Claim

Posted on July 30, 2009
In Cloverleaf Realty of New York, Inc. v. Town of Wawayanda, No. 07-3405-cv (July 15, 2009), the Second Circuit held that a dismissal by a state court on statute of limitations ground does not preclude the plaintiff from bringing the...

Wisconsin Supreme Court: The Whole Is Lesser Than The Sum Of Its Parts

Posted on July 29, 2009
When considering a redevelopment authority's condemnation of what is assumed by all litigants to be a valuable leasehold interest, how does a court determine the lessee is owed nothing, and conclude that nothing is "just" compensation (and indeed, the lessee...

ABA Annual Meeting - State & Local Govt Law Section

Posted on July 28, 2009
If you're heading to the ABA annual meeting later this week in Chicago, I'll be (mostly) at the Section of State & Local Government Law sessions. Stop by an say hello -- I'll probably be the guy in the back...

Friday Round-Up

Posted on July 24, 2009
Here's what piquing our interest today: Not! - It looks like our grandiose prediction that "Feds Likely To Seek Cert In Casitas (Water Rights Taking Case)" turned out to be wrong since nothing is showing on the SCOTUS docket and...

Must A Property Owner Seek A Change In The Law In Order To Ripen A Takings Claim?

Posted on July 20, 2009
In a notable case worth following, the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals is considering a new appeal involving whether a per se regulatory takings claim is ripe under Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473...

Do Judges "Make" Law? The Sotomayor Nomination And The Beachfront Takings Case

Posted on July 17, 2009
We've been loosely following the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotamayor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and reading selected testimony and commentary on the subject. We say "loosely" since confirmation hearings are...

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