The court holds that a municipal regulation prohibiting billboards on rooftops did not effect a taking of an outdoor advertiser's interest in its rooftop signs. The regulation, enacted in 1975, prohibited rooftop billboards after 1987. The advertiser renewed its leases for rooftop billboards with se...
The court holds that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or act arbitrarily or capriciously in granting a developer a permit to fill wetlands abutting Lake Ponchatrain in Louisiana without first preparing an environmental impact statement (EI...
The court holds that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it issued a permit to a developer that planned to fill wetlands for a mixed use development project in Los Angeles County, California, and, therefore, vacated a district court's in...
The court holds that the owners and operators of public water systems in California violated the national primary drinking water regulations for microbiological contaminants, lead, and copper contained in the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and holds them individually liable for those violations. The...
Editors' Summary: Rather than signaling the death of private property rights, as media and the public initially feared, the Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London ushered in an era of increased state and federal protection for private property. In this Article, Daniel H. Cole examines Kelo's repercussions for urban redevelopment. He begins with a description of the case, and then examines the resulting backlash from the media and public opinion, which decried the decision as unduly expanding eminent domain powers.
Editors' Summary: In this Article, William W. Wade evaluates the conceptual measurement of economic impact within the Penn Central test for income-producing properties recently adjudicated in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The discussion considers measurement of the denominator of the takings fraction related to Penn Central's parcel as a whole and whether it differs between permanent and temporary takings.
In a recent essay, David Coursen asks an important and unexamined question: Are environmental justice policies, which seek to avoid disproportionate environmental burdens on minority and poor communities, on a "collision course" with the Equal Protection Clause? In concluding that a potential collision is more illusory than real, Coursen offers a number of reasons why governmental actions to promote environmental justice have not been challenged in court and, even if they were to be, would not be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny.
The court holds that although it has jurisdiction to hear an individual's claim for damages against a city for disrupting his construction project, the individual's due process rights were not violated. The individual was granted the necessary permits to begin preparing the site for the construction...
The court holds that the owner of a retail development lacked standing to bring Federal-Aid Highway Act (FAHA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) actions against the Secretary of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) for failing to prevent a county from approving the...