The U.S Supreme Court held that a local ordinance that imposes a personal property tax on certain boats and vessels but contains exceptions that, in effect, largely limit its applicability to large oil tankers violates the U.S. Constitution's Tonnage Clause, Art. I, §10, cl. 3. The ordinance im...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision setting aside the U.S. Forest Service's State Petitions Rule and reinstating the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, more commonly known as the "Roadless Rule," pending the Service's compliance with NEPA and the ESA. The State Petitions Rule, issued in ...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing water districts' and other entities' claims against an Oklahoma agency and the United States in a dispute over water rights stemming from the Grand River. The plaintiffs sought a declaration regarding their interests in the Grand River wat...

The Seventh Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a citizen group's 42 U.S.C. §1983 action against state park officials for refusing to include in the park's display racks pamphlets warning of asbestos in the park. A park is a traditional public forum, and thus the park authorities...

The Ninth Circuit held that a city's mobile home rent control ordinance, which effects a transfer of nearly 90 percent of the property value from mobile home park owners to mobile home tenants, constitutes a facial regulatory taking under Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 10...

A district court denied a manufacturer's motion for preliminary injunction to retain the "Energy Star" energy efficiency label that DOE ordered it to remove from approximately 40,000 of its refrigerators. The central issue in the case was the proper procedures for testing the energy efficiency of th...

The First Circuit dismissed a land trust's claim that a statute revoking its title to lands in a canal area amounted to a taking and violated its due process rights. The statute amended Law 489, which among other things, created the land trust and transferred to the trust title to certain lands that...

The Fifth Circuit, in a class action suit, reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings a lower court decision dismissing landowners' Fifth Amendment takings claims arising from the conversion of a railroad right-of-way to a recreational trail traversing their land. The la...

The Federal Circuit upheld the dismissal of landowners' inverse condemnation suit against the federal government alleging that their property was contaminated by trichloroethylene (TCE) as the result of government actions at a U.S. Air Force base. The landowners failed to point to some evidence pres...

The Third Circuit reversed a district court judgment awarding compensation to property owners pursuant to the government’s taking of 6.45 acres of land in the Gettysburg National Military Park. The court impermissibly failed to apply the "unit rule" of valuation and, therefore, improperly deter...