Law Commons^™

Background Principles And The Rule Of Law: Fifteen Years After Lucas, James L. Huffman

James L. Huffman

Abstract

The Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council was welcomed by property right advocates. Justice Scalia’s opinion for the Court established a categorical taking where all economic value is lost as a result of regulation. Not surprisingly, advocates of unconstrained environmental and land use regulation were dismayed, although many were quick to suggest (hopefully) that Lucas’s impacts would be minimal since most regulations do not destroy all economic value.

Fifteen years later some who saw only dark clouds on the regulatory horizon as a consequence of Lucas now see a rainbow with a pot of …

Beware Of Greens In Praise Of The Common Law, James L. Huffman

James L. Huffman

Beware of Greens in Praise of the Common Law

James L. Huffman

ABSTRACT

After several decades of general agreement among environmental law scholars and environmentalists that the common law is inadequate to meet the challenges of environmental protection, a few scholars have taken a second look at common law remedies in recent years. Simple pragmatism explains some of this newborn interest in the common law, while for others there has been at least some acceptance of the efficiency arguments made by free market environmentalists since the 1970s. But for the most part the fledgling environmentalist case for revival of common …

Speaking Of Inconvenient Truths -- A History Of The Public Trust Doctrine , James L. Huffman

James L. Huffman

In the nearly four decades since Professor Joe Sax published an article in the Michigan Law Review, there has been a flood of academic writing and court decisions on the public trust doctrine. The vast majority of these articles and judicial opinions give a brief synopsis of the doctrine’s Roman, English and early American roots. In a nutshell, the generally accepted history is that from Justinian’s Institutes through Magna Charta and Bracton, Hale and Blackstone reporting on English law and Chancellor Kent acknowledging the reception of English and Roman law in America, the public has deeply rooted rights in access …