Plan Bay Area is a monumental land use document prepared by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), for the ostensible purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by the year 2035, as required by former Governor Schwarzenegger’s Senate Bill 375. Kassouni Law is currently litigating the legality of… Read more »
Tesla Motors CEO, Elon Musk, has decided to build a 500,000 unit per year battery factory (Gigafactory) in Sparks, Nevada. This facility, desgned to be as large as nearly 200 football fields, will employ tens of thousands and contribute billions of dollars per year to the local economy. Destined to come online in 2017, the Gigafactory’s goal is… Read more »
Today the land use law firm of Kassouni Law filed the opening brief in an important case challenging the Plan Bay Area’s Sustainable Communities Strategy adopted by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). Kassouni Law represents Michael Shaw of Freedom Advocates, Rosa Koire, and the Post-Sustainability Institute. MTC and ABAG were… Read more »
To say that the situation in Nevada between federal officials and cattle rancher Clive Bundy has gotten out of hand would be an understatement. As of this morning, armed federal officials have seized Mr. Bundy’s cattle, forcibly arrested his son, and surrounded his ranch with armed federal agents. The Bundy’s, for their part, have assembled… Read more »
The United States Constitution provides that the government may not take your property without due process of law. In the criminal law context that usually means that you cannot be punished, or have your property taken unless the government can prove that you committed a crime. Yet, in states and cities across the country, property… Read more »
Kassouni Law’s recent landmark property rights victory is featured in the news: Alameda County pays almost $2 million to Castro Valley company after losing lawsuit By Rebecca Parr The Daily Review Posted: 12/16/2013 03:35:11 PM PST Updated: 12/16/2013 04:46:27 PM PST CASTRO VALLEY — Alameda County has been ordered to pay almost… Read more »
Last week the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States v. Apel — a case which has a number of free speech advocacy groups up in arms. But as Justice Scalia repeatedly pointed out during oral argument, the First Amendment is not at issue in the case. To understand this confusion, a… Read more »
The US Supreme Court will soon decide whether millions of property owners will maintain the ability to sue the government for regulatory takings arising under the Clean Water Act. Last June, a property owner filed a petition asking the Court to overturn the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal’s opinion in Mehaffy v. United States. In… Read more »
Under the “Rails to Trails” program, the Federal government has begun converting abandoned railroad tracks into hiking and biking trails for the public. While this may seem like a noble endeavor, there is one major problem: the land the trails run through doesn’t belong to the federal government. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century when… Read more »
This term the US Supreme Court will have the opportunity to decide whether the state can force private home assistants to join a public employee union. Recently, the Court agreed to hear arguments from appeal lawyers in Harris v Quinn. That case challenges the constitutionality of an Illinois executive order that declared personal home assistants (i.e…. Read more »
