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Florida appellate court to hold oral argument in PLF case this week
Florida’s Second District of Appeal On Tuesday, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal will hold oral arguments in a number of cases, including in Pacific Legal Foundation‘s P.I.E., LLC v. DeSoto...
View ArticlePLF's Sackett and Hawkes victories come to Michigan
Marquette County, perched on the edge of Lake Superior, is one of the most populated counties in Michigan’s upper peninsula. In order to decrease traffic and to increase safety through the small towns...
View ArticleWalton County couple speaks up for property owners’ First Amendment rights
The GoodwinsLast week, the Destin Log published my opinion article about Edward and Delanie Goodwin’s challenge to a Walton County, Florida, ordinance that bans signs on the Goodwins’ private property....
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I dream of a federal government that doesn't overreach
Most people associate Cape Canaveral with NASA and the Kennedy Space Center, but many licensed commercial fishermen and crabbers in Merritt Island rely on the waters of Florida’s “Space Coast” to earn...
View ArticleHow long is too long for a court to 'rehear' a case?
Earlier this year, careful readers of the blog know I called your attention to a regulatory land grab taking place in the beautiful Florida Keys. That case, known as Beyer v. City of Marathon, has...
View ArticlePLF files amicus brief on behalf of Marquette (MI) County Road Commission
This past week, Pacific Legal Foundation filed an amicus brief in federal district court supporting the Marquette County Road Commission as it seeks to build a needed road across the Upper Peninsula of...
View ArticleTuesday: PLF will join press conference on EPA’s arbitrary roadblock in Michigan
On Tuesday, August 30, I will join officials with the Marquette County Road Commission in the upper peninsula of Michigan for a press conference to discuss how the U.S. EPA is unjustifiably blocking...
View ArticleOur work for Yoopers gets some media attention
Pacific Legal Foundation’s Atlantic Center represents clients in courts all over the eastern United States. We recently agreed to represent a local government agency, the Marquette County Road...
View ArticleFlorida appeals court issues decision that is truly for the birds
My handy-dandy Idiom Dictionary says the expression “for the birds” describes something “worthless” and “undesirable.” The dictionary goes on to explain the etymology as “based on the idea that birds...
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Michigan Confidential catches us up on PLF Yooper news
Earlier this week, Michigan Capitol Confidential published a very nice summary of the Marquette County Road Commission v. EPA lawsuit now pending in the District Court for the Western District of...
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Cats vs. rats in Key Largo
Key Largo, a movie in which bureaucrat Edward G. Robinson thinks Lauren Bacall is protecting criminal cats trying to catch innocent rats; Bogie sues the feds in court, saves the day, and looks dapper...
View ArticleA forgotten property rights protection in Florida
The Environmental and Land Use Law Section of the Florida Bar (ELULS) recently published my article about a forgotten protection provided by Florida’s Bert J. Harris, Jr., Private Property Rights...
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Another unconstitutional takings case on its way to the Florida Supreme Court
Gordon Beyer with grandson. Pacific Legal Foundation reviews hundreds of regulatory takings cases a year. Often we cannot take a case, for any number of reasons, even though the facts call out for...
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Earth to the Feds: dry New Mexico should not be designated “critical habitat”...
Looking for big cats in all the wrong places Calling New Mexico essential to the conservation of the jaguar is kind of like calling your garbage can essential to a raccoon just because you found one...
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Whither the courts?
Doug Kruse Many people I know in Florida told me they voted for President-Elect Trump because they believed he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court of the United States similar in philosophy to...
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Rooked for a rookery? Another takings case in Florida
The Beyer family The Miami Daily Business Review, “your leading source of daily legal and business news in South Florida,”* recently published a PLF op-ed about our Ganson v. City of Marathon case. The...
View ArticleWho owns what on the Indiana shoreline of Lake Michigan?
Earlier this week, the Indiana Court of Appeals offered its view of the long-running battle in that state between property owners on Lake Michigan who expect the law to protect property rights, and the...
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On the road to the Sixth Circuit
Regular readers know that earlier this year PLF joined the Marquette County Road Commission‘s fight in Michigan federal court to build a road to serve the needs of its community over the arbitrary and...
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Merry Christmas from Pacific Legal Foundation!
(Today we re-publish a two-year old PLF Christmas blog post for readers who may have missed it the first time…with a little bonus material for those who read it previously.) From the Pacific Legal...
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Federal agency flouts Endangered Species Act again
Members of Save Crystal River, Inc. Today, PLF sent a warning to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that unless the agency adopts its proposed rule to reclassify the manatee within 60-days, PLF will...
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A good day for students’ school choice in Florida
Yesterday, the Florida Supreme Court rejected a union’s lawsuit challenging Florida’s tax credit scholarship program, and a Florida appellate court rejected a school district’s claim that charter...
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Judge Neil Gorsuch: superbly well-qualified
When President Trump announced that he selected Judge Neil Gorsuch as his nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States, PLF promptly released its statement recognizing that Judge Gorsuch is...
View ArticleThe road goes on forever and PLF's fight for liberty never ends
This week, Pacific Legal Foundation joined with the Marquette County Road Commission in the upper peninsula of Michigan to appeal the U.S. EPA’s decision to unjustifiably block construction of an...
View ArticleSixth Circuit slams the courthouse doors to takings case
The Sixth Circuit today dismissed Wayside Church v. Van Buren County, a case challenging Michigan’s unconstitutional tax foreclosure scheme. Judge Kethledge who dissented from the panel’s decision,...
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Manatee count shows population continues to grow
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) gave cause to celebrate: the manatee population continues to grow in Florida, according to agency’s newest survey results. The FWC today announced it...
View ArticleGoodwins’ fight against land grab and First Amendment violations gaining...
This weekend, Forbes carried an excellent story about PLF’s fight on behalf of Edward and Delanie Goodwin. In July, PLF attorneys filed a First Amendment challenge to protect the Goodwins’ right to...
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PLF opposes unconstitutional land grab in New Jersey
Atlantic City sunrise Earlier today, Pacific Legal Foundation filed a friend of the court brief in the appellate courts of New Jersey opposing that state’s failed attempt at an unconstitutional land...
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PLF Michigan road project case gets attention from the WSJ
Blue = current dangerous truck route. White = safe CR 595 plan. Saturday’s Wall Street Journal will include a Pacific Legal Foundation op-ed co-authored with Mike Pattwell, an environmental litigator...
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Yale, Georgetown, and Pace Law students win PLF competition
Pacific Legal Foundation announced the winners of its 2016-17 Annual Law Student Writing Competition today. Awards totaling $9,000 in cash will be given to three top law students whose publishable...
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DeSoto County takes bite of P.I.E.; P.I.E. bites back
I was told this was a Florida property regulator. When the Florida Legislature enacted the Bert J. Harris, Jr., Private Property Rights Protection Act, it explained that the law provided a remedy to...
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PLF Victory! Feds finally follow the law and reclassify manatee
Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the final rule to downlist the manatee from endangered to threatened. This comes in response to a nearly five-year battle with PLF to get the federal...
View ArticlePLF asks Indiana Supreme Court to protect coastal property rights
May the government allow strangers to recreate on your private, beach-front property for free? That’s the question the Indiana Supreme Court is being asked to consider in an important property-rights...
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PLF threatens lawsuit over feds’ failure to revise outdated golden parakeet...
Once again, federal officials have missed a legal deadline required by the Endangered Species Act. PLF just warned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that unless it acts within 60 days on the American...
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Florida city unconstitutionally authorizes public trespassing
The Chmielewski family’s one-story home In recent years, many local and state governments have used crafty methods to take access to private beaches without first paying for the right. Governments have...
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Florida Supreme Court rules for birds, against Fifth Amendment
Birds > private property rights in some courts. Yesterday, we learned the Florida Supreme Court denied review of our Ganson v. City of Marathon regulatory takings case. We’ve previously written...
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Short-term home rentals and safe neighborhoods can coexist
Goldwater Institute’s Executive Vice-President Christina Sandefur This week in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Goldwater Institute‘s Executive Vice-President Christina Sandefur and I encourage Florida...
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Vero Beach High School has a First Amendment problem
J.P. Krause (photo courtesy Charlie Vitunac) Vero Beach High School, a public high school on the east coast of Florida, has a First Amendment problem. The school failed to respect it. And now a...
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The EPA tries to evade judicial review. Again.
Jim Iwanicki of the Marquette County Road Commission points to the new road the Road Commission plans to construct after PLF wins the case. Earlier this week, Pacific Legal Foundation filed its...
View ArticleICYMI: Fox & Friends welcomed PLF client J.P. Krause
On Sunday morning, the Fox and Friends Weekend morning show on the Fox News Channel welcomed PLF client J.P. Krause, a rising senior at Vero Beach High School, as their guest. J.P., the young man who...
View ArticleAn unjust loss for property rights in Florida's Fifth DCA
Earlier today, we learned that Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed a jury award for millions of dollars to a family that had its property rights basically ignored by a small town on...
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Teaching the teachers about the First Amendment
J.P. Krause celebrates his victory. Following a warning letter from Pacific Legal Foundation, today officials at Vero Beach High School and the Indian River County School Board have finally withdrawn...
View ArticleWatch the story of J.P. Krause
Thanks to the Vero Beach Press-Journal editorial board for publishing a very nice editorial on Sunday in support of Pacific Legal Foundation and PLF client J.P. Krause. From the editorial: Krause and...
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Making takings law great again in Florida
DeSoto County Courthouse in southern Florida The Florida Legislature expects the courts of this bonny state to protect property rights. But the courts have not gotten the message. Time after time, the...
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EPA files its brief in important Administrative Law case
Marquette, Michigan When we last blogged about our Marquette County Road Commission v. EPA case, we reported that we had filed our principal brief opposing the government’s efforts to stymie our...
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PLF’s Markle critical habitat case draws broad amicus support
Ed Poitevent, one of the landowners at the mercy of a frog who doesn’t live anywhere near his property, and never will. This week, business groups, associations, think tanks, and government entities...
View ArticleGroups ask Supreme Court to grant PLF’s petition in Wayside Church v. Van...
This week several groups filed “friend of the court” briefs supporting PLF’s Supreme Court petition in Wayside Church v. Van Buren County. Two of the amicus briefs—one by AARP and the other by the...
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Free speech at the University of Florida after Charlottesville
Florida alligator ready to greet Nazis and KKK members in Gainesville. How should local public officials, be they police officers, city officials, or university presidents, protect First Amendment free...
View ArticleDoes President Trump know that his Administration is blocking an important...
On behalf of its client the Marquette County Road Commission, today Pacific Legal Foundation filed its Reply Brief in Marquette County Road Commission v. EPA, a case now pending before the Sixth...
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Hamilton, the separation of powers, and Constitution Day 2017
Alexander Hamilton Sunday marks the 230th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of the United States. Pacific Legal Foundation celebrates Constitution Day this year with a column about a...
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A case that is for the birds flies to the Supreme Court
Alfred Hitchcock planning sequel to The Birds featuring bureaucrats from south Florida and helpless property owners in the role made famous by Tippy Hedren. This past week Cato Institute, Southeastern...
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