In Kaur v. New York Urban Development Corporation, its recent decision upholding the condemnation of property for transfer to Columbia University, the New York Court of Appeals claimed that the use of eminent domain to transfer land to a private university is more defensible than its use to transfer land to commercial corporations, as in […]
Archive | Property Rights
New York High Court Upholds Columbia University Takings
By Ilya Somin on June 24, 2010 5:44 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
In today’s decision in Kaur v. New York State Urban Development Corp.
Property Rights Five Years After Kelo
By Ilya Somin on June 23, 2010 4:23 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Today is the fifth anniversary of Kelo v. City of New London, one of the most controversial decisions in Supreme Court history. In Kelo, a narrow 5-4 majority of the Court ruled that the condemnation of private property for transfer to other private individuals for purposes of promoting “economic development” was permitted by the Fifth […]
Property Rights for Advocates of Thoughts We Hate
By Ilya Somin on June 22, 2010 12:35 am in Property Rights, Religion, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote that freedom of speech requires “not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.” The same point applies to property rights. A free society must protect the property rights of those who espouse unpopular views – even if their unpopularity is […]
Property Rights & Climate Change at AALS
By Jonathan H. Adler on June 20, 2010 11:29 pm in Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Property Rights
I presented on a plenary panel discussing the implications of global warming for property law at the AALS Mid-Year meeting earlier this month. My thesis, in short, was that concerns about global climate change do not justify abandoning or reconceiving traditional property norms. To the contrary, I suggested, environmental problems generally – and the threat […]
Federalism and Judicial Enforcement of Constitutional Property Rights
In a recent post on Prawfsblawg, NYU lawprof Rick Hills – a major federalism scholar – argues that federalism concerns justify strictly limiting federal court enforcement of constitutional property rights: SCOTUS’ decision yesterday in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Dep’t of Environmental Protection once more illustrates the axiom already established by many other decisions: […]
Unclear Outcome in Key Supreme Court Property Rights Case
By Ilya Somin on June 17, 2010 4:55 pm in Due Process Clause Property Rights, Property Rights, Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has just issued its opinion in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, a key property rights case. Unfortunately, the most important constitutional issue at stake – what, if any government actions count as “judicial takings” remains mostly unresolved. I summarized the facts of the case here: Under Florida’s […]
So Why Not Roe?
By David Bernstein on June 17, 2010 1:50 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Due Process Clause Property Rights, Just Compensation Clause, Property Rights, Rehabilitating Lochner
In today’s Stop the Beach opinion, Justice Scalia (joined by the other three conservatives) criticizes Justice Kennedy for arguing that what Scalia consider “judicial takings” should instead be handled as violation of the Due Process Clause: The second problem is that we have held for many years (logically or not) that the “liberties” protected by […]
Is the Debate Over Eminent Domain “Empty and Incoherent”?
By Ilya Somin on June 4, 2010 11:07 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
In a recent post on Kaur v. Urban Development Corporation, the Columbia eminent domain case currently before New York’s state supreme court, NYU lawprof Rick Hills argues that the debate over eminent domain is largely meaningless. Kaur, like the Atlantic Yards case before it, addresses a key issue in takings law: whether the condemnation of […]
New York High Court Oral Argument in Columbia Eminent Domain Case
By Ilya Somin on June 2, 2010 2:46 pm in Blight, Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
The New York Court of Appeals (which, despite the misleading name, is New York’s state supreme court), held oral arguments yesterday in Kaur v. New York Urban Development Corporation, the case in which New York City is trying to condemn a large amount of property in the Manhattanville neighborhood in order to transfer it to […]
James Ely on Stevens, Kagan, Obama, and Property Rights
By Ilya Somin on May 16, 2010 8:25 pm in Eminent Domain, Judicial Nominations, Kagan Nomination, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights, Supreme Court
Vanderbilt lawprof James Ely – a leading expert on constitutional property rights – has an interesting column on the relevance of property rights to the current Supreme Court nomination: In seeking a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, President Obama indicated that he wanted to name someone in the Stevens mold. Among […]
An Important Case on Compensation for Takings
In recent years, the Supreme Court has addressed many cases on property rights issues. But it has done very little with the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which requires that owners be compensated when their property is condemned by the government. The longstanding rule has been that owners deserve “fair market value” compensation. […]
The Lesson of the Lorax:
In honor of Earth Day, I thought I’d repost something I wrote in 2005 on the TV version of Dr. Seuss’ story of the Lorax. Dr. Seuss’ story of the Lorax is an environmental classic (as is the television version that I’ve just seen). The conventional interpretation is that it’s a tale of market-driven environmental […]
The Second Amendment and the Takings Clause
Felons can’t lawfully possess guns — does it mean they can’t even arrange for their sale, and that the court may just order them destroyed? That seems to have been the government’s view in United States v. Brown (D.N.H. Apr. 9, 2010), and at least one court has apparently taken this view, but the court […]
New Institute for Justice Report on Asset Forfeiture
By Ilya Somin on April 6, 2010 11:10 pm in Asset Forfeiture, Due Process Clause Property Rights, Property Rights
The Institute for Justice, a prominent libertarian public interest law firm, has an important new report detailing the many abuses of property rights in the asset forfeiture system. Here are a few of the key findings: In most states and under federal law, law enforcement can keep some or all of the proceeds from civil […]