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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Police Power And 'Public Use': Balancing The Public Interest Against Private Rights Through Principled Constitutional Distinctions, Christopher D. Supino
The Police Power And 'Public Use': Balancing The Public Interest Against Private Rights Through Principled Constitutional Distinctions, Christopher D. Supino
ExpressO
The Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London sparked nationwide outrage. The American public was shocked to learn that the Fifth Amendment’s Taking Clause could be interpreted to allow the government to seize a non-blighted residence and convey it to another private party to help facilitate a development project. Yet, contrary to popular belief, the Kelo decision did not mark a significant departure from the Court’s early eminent domain jurisprudence. This article traces the judicial history of the Public Use Clause and the police power of the states, and demonstrates the Court’s historical inability to clearly …
Justice Thomas' Kelo Dissent, Or, "History As A Grab Bag Of Principles", David L. Breau
Justice Thomas' Kelo Dissent, Or, "History As A Grab Bag Of Principles", David L. Breau
ExpressO
In Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court held 5-4 that creating jobs and increasing tax revenues satisfy the Fifth Amendment’s requirement that property be "taken for public use." Justice Thomas joined the dissenters, but authored a separate opinion arguing that the Public Use Clause was originally understood as a substantive limitation that allowed the government to take property only if the government owns, or the public actually uses, the taken property. This article demonstrates that much of the historical evidence that Justice Thomas provides in his dissent to support a narrow original understanding of public use in …
The "Public Use" Requirement In Eminent Domain Law: A Rationale Based On Secret Purchases And Private Influence, Daniel B. Kelly
The "Public Use" Requirement In Eminent Domain Law: A Rationale Based On Secret Purchases And Private Influence, Daniel B. Kelly
ExpressO
This article provides a rationale for understanding and interpreting the “public use” requirement within eminent domain law. The rationale is based on two factors. First, while the government often needs the power of eminent domain to avoid the problem of strategic holdout, private parties are usually able to purchase property through secret buying agents. The availability of these buying agents makes the use of eminent domain for private parties unnecessary (and indeed, undesirable). The government, however, is ordinarily unable to make secret purchases because its plans are subject to democratic deliberation and known in advance. Second, while the use of …
The Takings Clause, Version 2005: The Legal Process Of Constitutional Property Rights, Mark Fenster
The Takings Clause, Version 2005: The Legal Process Of Constitutional Property Rights, Mark Fenster
ExpressO
The three takings decisions that the Supreme Court issued at the end of its October 2004 Term marked a stunning reversal of the Court’s efforts the past three decades to use the Takings Clause to define a set of constitutional property rights. The regulatory takings doctrine, which once loomed as a significant threat to the modern regulatory state, now appears after Lingle v. Chevron to be a relatively tame, if complicated, check on exceptional instances of regulatory abuse. At the same time, the Public Use Clause, formerly an inconsequential limitation on the state’s eminent domain authority, now appears ripe for …
From The Lighthouses: How The First Federal Internal Improvement Projects Created Precedent That Broadened The Commerce Clause, Shrunk The Takings Clause, And Affected Early Nineteenth Century Constitutional Debate, Adam S. Grace
ExpressO
No abstract provided.
Takings Formalism And Regulatory Formulas: Exactions And The Consequences Of Clarity, Mark Fenster
Takings Formalism And Regulatory Formulas: Exactions And The Consequences Of Clarity, Mark Fenster
ExpressO
A vocal minority of the U.S. Supreme Court recently announced its suspicion that lower courts and state and local administrative agencies are systematically ignoring constitutional rules intended to limit, through heightened judicial review, exactions as a land use regulatory tool. Exactions are the concessions local governments require of property owners as conditions for the issuance of the entitlements that enable the intensified use of real property. In two cases decided over the past two decades, Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987) and Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994), the Court has established under the Takings Clause a logic and metrics …