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Full-Text Articles in Law
One Parcel Plus One Parcel Equals A "Parcel As A Whole" Murr V. Wisconsin's Fluid Calculations For Regulatory Takings, Shelby D. Green
One Parcel Plus One Parcel Equals A "Parcel As A Whole" Murr V. Wisconsin's Fluid Calculations For Regulatory Takings, Shelby D. Green
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
The Court's most recent major property law case, Murr v. Wisconsin, 137 S. Ct. 1933 (2017), tackles one of the thorny, recurring issues in regulatory takings jurisprudence: what is the proper “denominator” to use in determining whether a government regulation has so greatly diminished the economic value of a parcel of land that it effects a taking? More specifically, Murr looked at what constitutes the “parcel as a whole” when a landowner holds title to two contiguous lots. Should a court assess the economic impact on the value of each lot separately or the impact on the value of the …
Takings And Property Rights Legislation, John R. Nolon
Takings And Property Rights Legislation, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Over the years, regulatory takings case law has supported land use regulations by cloaking them with a presumption of validity and placing a heavy burden on their challengers of proving either that the regulation fails to substantially advance a legitimate public purpose or that it deprives the owner of all economically beneficial use of the land. Insulated in this way, regulators, on occasion, have transgressed the boundaries of fundamental fairness.
Evolving Thresholds Of Nuisance And The Takings Clause, John A. Humbach
Evolving Thresholds Of Nuisance And The Takings Clause, John A. Humbach
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This article reviews the historical tradition in which the common law core of nuisance has been the frequent subject of statutory additions and refinements, providing most of our modern law of land use and environmental protection. Until Lucas, the Takings Clause had not been treated as a charter establishing the courts as boards of revision to rethink and selectively veto legislative determinations in the land use field. Within the scope of “total takings,” however, Lucas has converted the Takings Clause from its original meaning and made it exactly that.
"Taking" The Imperial Judiciary Seriously: Segmenting Property Interests And Judicial Revision Of Legislative Judgments, John A. Humbach
"Taking" The Imperial Judiciary Seriously: Segmenting Property Interests And Judicial Revision Of Legislative Judgments, John A. Humbach
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This Article examines the diversion of the Takings Clause from its historic limited role to that of a charter for courts to second-guess legislative determinations of land-use rights and wrongs. As we shall see, prior to Lucas the Supreme Court and others following its lead have generally not regarded the Takings Clause as a warrant for reaching de novo determinations on land use problems and then substituting such judicial determinations, if different, for those of the legislature. Some notable exceptions in the Claims Court and Federal Circuit will then be considered along with the ostensible Supreme Court authority, a sentence …
What Is Behind The "Property Rights" Debate?, John A. Humbach
What Is Behind The "Property Rights" Debate?, John A. Humbach
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council' obviously presents issues that range far more broadly than just whether people should be allowed to build on beaches and dunes. Many observers have viewed the case as a splendid opportunity for the Supreme Court to re-establish private owner autonomy in land use decisions - to cut down, perhaps drastically, on elected legislatures' traditional power to protect the environment by regulating uses of land. Behind the "property rights" debate is the question of whether states and communities really ought to have the power that they have traditionally had to control the development and patterns …
Footprints In The Shifting Sands Of The Isle Of Palms: A Practical Analysis Of Regulatory Takings Cases, John R. Nolon
Footprints In The Shifting Sands Of The Isle Of Palms: A Practical Analysis Of Regulatory Takings Cases, John R. Nolon
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
It was not until the last day of the term, June 29, 1992, that the Court decided Lucas. By that time, interest could not have been greater. At issue was the validity of a regulation that prohibited all permanent development of the plaintiff's two beachfront lots. The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the regulation by a 3-2 margin because it prevented a “great public harm.” The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that determination and remanded the case to determine whether South Carolina's common law of nuisance could prohibit the construction of single-family housing on the lots. The fractured Court delivered an …
Constitutional Limits On The Power To Take Private Property: Public Purpose And Public Use, John A. Humbach
Constitutional Limits On The Power To Take Private Property: Public Purpose And Public Use, John A. Humbach
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
The rights/freedoms dichotomy tacitly permeates Supreme Court ‘takings' jurisprudence, and it has an explanatory power which extends to virtually all ‘takings' cases decided by the Court. Its explanatory power does not, however, extend to the relatively few cases which involve the taking of ‘rights' for purely private use, that is rearrangements of existing private property rights, as opposed to takings for use by the government or its designees in some public service function. Because rearranging the existing pattern of private ownership takes ‘rights' and not mere ‘freedoms,’ we might expect, according to the rights/freedoms pattern, that the Court would uniformly …
Economic Due Process And The Takings Clause, John A. Humbach
Economic Due Process And The Takings Clause, John A. Humbach
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
The discussion which follows will examine the new verbalizations repeatedly employed in Supreme Court takings decisions of the past decade and the Court's enlistment of the just compensation requirement as a basis for undertaking substantive review of legislation. As an introduction, the distinctive historical roles and roots of the substantive due process and just compensation requirements will be reviewed.
A Unifying Theory For The Just-Compensation Cases: Takings, Regulation And Public Use, John A. Humbach
A Unifying Theory For The Just-Compensation Cases: Takings, Regulation And Public Use, John A. Humbach
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This discussion begins with some remarks concerning the concept of property as a general matter. It will then consider briefly an approach to the problem which, though promising and advanced, nevertheless falls short of achieving an internally consistent, unifying theory. Following this introduction, an attempt will be made to specify the two distinctive conceptual components of property interests on whose difference the cases seem to turn, and then to demonstrate the suitability of this conceptual distinction as the foundation for a coherent theory of the law.