News & Events

James Burling, Vice President of Legal Affairs at Pacific Legal Foundation, will receive the 2022 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize at William & Mary Law School’s 19th annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference on September 29-30 sponsored by the William & Mary Property Rights Project. The Property Rights Project presents the award each year to an individual whose scholarly work and accomplishments affirm that property rights are fundamental to protecting individual and...

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OCA Affiliate Member Jonathan Houghton recently announced that he will be leaving the law firm of Goldstein, Rikon, Rikon and Houghton, where he has practiced on behalf of property owners for many years in the areas of eminent domain, inverse condemnation and regulatory takings to work within the Property Rights Group of the Pacific Legal Foundation. In leaving a law firm that has mean a lot to him, Jon...

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Owners’ Counsel of America (OCA) is pleased to announce that Nina Sawaya, a second year law student attending Denver University Sturm College of Law, will be the first recipient of the Toby Prince Brigham OCA Scholarship. Created in 2021 following the passing of OCA’s founder, Toby Prince Brigham, the scholarship is designed to inspire the next generation of lawyers to take up the cause of protecting and defending private property...

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in Cedar Point v. Hassid  that California’s “access regulation” law allowing union organizers to enter agricultural property for a certain amount of time without the owner’s consent, constitutes a per se  physical taking. In 2015, union activists entered Cedar Point Nursery seeking to encourage farm workers who worked there to join the United Farm Workers union. But the farm owner, Mike Fahner, didn’t give the union permission to...

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The Bayou Bridge Pipeline company must pay owners their attorneys fees after they prevailed in obtaining compensation awards based on the company commencing  work on their lands before getting legal permission, the Louisiana Supreme Court recently ruled. The seven justices agreed that Louisiana’s 1974 Constitution allows attorneys’ fees and litigation costs as part of the just compensation to landowners who win eminent domain proceedings. The company had argued that it...

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We are disappointed in the recent decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court upholding a pre-condemnation jurisdictional offer made by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT) to a property owner that deviated substantially from the Department’s own appraisal which, under Wisconsin law, is required to form the basis of the offer. As three Supreme Court Justices (including the Chief Justice) correctly pointed out in their strong dissent, the jurisdictional offer...

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In the recent case entitled Cass County Joint Water Resource District, v. Cash H. Aaland, Larry W. Bakko and Penny Cirks, the North Dakota Supreme Court rules in the property owners favor on the issue of whether a Water District had the authority to enter upon the owner’s property prior to filing a condemnation case, as part of a flood diversion project.  In this unique factual situation, the Water District...

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The Supreme Court is currently entertaining an interesting property rights case entitled Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid. Cedar Point Nursery together with Fowler Packing Company are California fruit growers that employ around 3,000 Californians. In 2015, the United Farm Workers (UFW) sent union organizers to Cedar Point’s workplace during harvest time to encourage them to unionize. Under California’s Union Access Regulation the organizers are granted an easement that allows them to...

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A few days ago the U.S. Supreme Court in this order declined to issue a writ of certiorari to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Bridge Aina Lea, LLC v. Hawaii Land Use Comm’n, No. 20-54, a case in which a federal court jury concluded the property owner suffered both a Lucas and Penn Central taking, but the Ninth Circuit reversed, concluding that no reasonable jury could have found...

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Many people would assume that if a police department or swat team completely destroyed someone’s private residence during an operation to apprehend a fleeing suspect, particularly when that suspect did not have an ownership interest in the residence, the government would be responsible and liable for the destruction under the Fifth Amendment “takings clause” of the United States Constitution. But in two recent court decisions, one from Colorado decided...

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