Legendary Nobel Prize-winning economist and legal scholar Ronald Coase has just published a new book, How China Became Capitalist, coauthored with political scientist Ning Wang. It’s incredible that Coase is still publishing books at the age of 102! He puts the rest of us academics to shame. Coase and Wang summarize their thesis in this […]
Archive | Property Rights
US Attorney Carmen Ortiz May Appeal Carswell Forfeiture Case
The Boston Herald reports that controversial US Attorney Carmen Ortiz may be planning to appeal her trial court defeat in United States v. 434 Main Street, Tewksbury, the highly abusive asset forfeiture case I blogged about on Friday: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said her office is weighing an appeal against a Tewksbury motel owner who […]
Property Owners Prevail in Important Asset Forfeiture Case
By Ilya Somin on January 25, 2013 3:02 pm in Asset Forfeiture, Due Process Clause Property Rights, Property Rights
A federal district court in Massachusetts has ruled in favor of the property owners in United States v. 434 Main Street, Tewksbury, an important asset forfeiture case. This is the case where the federal government sought the forfeiture of a motel on the grounds that a few of the motel’s customers had bought or sold […]
Asset Forfeiture Abuse Revisited
By Ilya Somin on January 21, 2013 6:47 pm in Asset Forfeiture, Due Process Clause Property Rights, Property Rights
John Ross of Reason has a nice article summarizing the problem of asset forfeiture abuse, as exemplified by dubious practices in the nation’s capital: Jerrie Brathwaite was not in her car when Washington, D.C. police seized it in January 2012. She had lent her 2000 Nissan Maxima to a friend, and that friend was pulled […]
Koontz Oral Argument
SCOTUSBlog’s Lyle Denniston reports that oral argument did not appear to go very well for the landowners in Koontz v. St. Johns River Management Authority. Something really big, and potentially decisive, happened to a major new property rights case between the time the Supreme Court took it on, and Tuesday’s argument by lawyers before the […]
Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District
By Jonathan H. Adler on January 14, 2013 10:52 pm in Property Rights, Regulatory Takings, Supreme Court
Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a potentially important takings case, Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District. In this case, a landowner is challenging the state’s refusal to grant a permit to develop wetlands unless the landowner agreed to various conditions, including the performance of off-site mitigation. When the landowner […]
Talk on Kelo and Post-Kelo Eminent Domain Reform at South Texas College of Law
By Ilya Somin on January 14, 2013 6:23 pm in Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
This Thursday at 5 PM, I will be speaking on Kelo v. City of New London and post-Kelo eminent domain reform at South Texas College of Law in Houston. The talk will be held in the Emile Slohm conference roomon the 6th Floor, and is sponsored by the South Texas Federalist Society. I will will […]
Our Amicus Brief Urging the Supreme Court to Hear Ilagan v. Ungacta – An Important Post-Kelo Property Rights Case
By Ilya Somin on January 8, 2013 10:50 am in Eminent Domain, Kelo, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
We recently filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear Ilagan v. Ungacta, an important property rights case on the Public Use Clause of the Fifth Amendment. I wrote the brief on behalf of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, twelve other organizations (including the Cato Institute, the Becket […]
Rand Simberg on the Need for Private Property Rights in Space
Space policy expert Rand Simberg has an interesting article in the New Atlantis on the need for private property rights in space: Space contains valuable resources. These provide a compelling reason for entrepreneurs, investors, and governments to pursue space exploration and settlement. Asteroids are known to be rich in valuable elements like neodymium, scandium, yttrium, […]
Supreme Court Rules That Temporary Government-Induced Flooding of Private Property Can Qualify as a Taking
Today, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Arkansas Game and Fish Commission v. United States. The case involved a claim by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission that the federal government’s repeated deliberate flooding of its property between 1993 and 2000 constituted a taking requiring compensation under the Fifth Amendment, which mandates that […]
Chinese “Nail House” Owner Gives In
A few days ago, I blogged about a Chinese homeowner who refused to give up his house to a local government that sought to force him out in order to build a road on the site. It now appears that he has agreed to sell the house for the price offered by the government, which […]
Will the Mortgage Interest Deduction Sacred Cow Finally Get Slaughtered?
The Washington Post reports that Congress and the president are considering abolishing the mortgage interest deduction as part of a deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff”: Of all the deductions woven into the sprawling U.S. tax code, few have been more fiercely guarded than the enormous tax break that lets homeowners deduct the interest they […]
A Chinese Analogue to the Kelo Case?
This recent Chinese case has attracted a lot of attention in both China and the West, and is drawing comparisons to the famous US takings case of of Kelo v. City of New London. The Huffington Post describes the facts as follows: In the middle of an eastern Chinese city’s new main road, rising incongruously […]
How Private Property Rights Saved the Pilgrims
Today is Thanksgiving, and there is much to be thankful for. Not least on the list is the institution of private property, without which the Pilgrims might not have survived, and we would not have this holiday. Economist Benjamin Powell recounts the story here: Many people believe that after suffering through a severe winter, the […]
Local Government Forces Homeowners to Cut Down Trees so that Retired Baseball Star John Olerud Would Have a Better View of the Seattle Skyline from his House
Retired baseball All Star John Olerud has persuaded the Clyde Hill, Washington Board of Adjustment to force his neighbors to chop down two valuable trees on their property so that he will have a better view of the Seattle skyline: Nine years after he won his third Gold Glove as a Seattle Mariners first baseman, […]