Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

After the City revoked his rental licenses, plaintiff filed suit alleging that the City violated 42 U.S.C. 1983 by subjecting plaintiff to the deprivation of his rights, privileges, or immunities under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of the City's motion for summary judgment on the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims. The court held that plaintiff had not demonstrated, as a matter of law, that the City violated his substantive-due-process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court also held that the City's conduct was not arbitrary, oppressive, and shocking to the conscience, and there was no genuine dispute of material fact regarding whether the City violated plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights. In this case, plaintiff did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the common spaces entered by the City's police officers, and any argument that the police officers may have physically intruded on constitutionally protected areas by trespassing in his buildings to search for incriminating evidence was waived. View "Azam v. City of Columbia Heights" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court declined Appellants’ invitation to depart from the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967) and hold that Minnesota’s constitution requires that an administrative search warrant be supported by probable cause of the sort required in a criminal investigation. Camara held that an administrative warrant satisfies the probable cause requirement if reasonable legislative or administrative standards for conducting an unconsented-to rental housing inspection are satisfied with respect to a particular dwelling. In this case, the City of Golden Valley petitioned the district court for an administrative search warrant to search rental property for compliance with the city code. The district court denied the petition for the administrative search warrant, concluding that the issuance of such a search warrant was foreclosed without suspicion of a code violation. The court of appeals reversed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the Minnesota Constitution does not require individualized suspicion of a code violation to support an administrative search warrant for a rental housing inspection. View "City of Golden Valley v. Wiebesick" on Justia Law

Plaintiff owned and lived on a 400-acre estate and horse farm in Barrington Hills, Illinois, leasing the horse farm, “Horizon Farms,” to their company, Royalty Farms, LLC, which managed the farm’s operations. Their mortgage was foreclosed in 2013. The Forest Preserve District of Cook County bought the property at the foreclosure sale. Royalty Farms was not a party to the foreclosure proceeding, but the court entered a Dispossession Order, directing Plaintiff to vacate the property. The Forest Preserve District apparently tolerated the continued presence of several horses while plaintiff continued visiting the property daily to care for them. After nine months Plaintiff was arrested and prosecuted for criminal trespass. She was acquitted because the judge could not conclusively determine that she had been told not to enter the property. A year later she filed suit, claiming false arrest and malicious prosecution. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Regardless of whether Plaintiff entered the property as an employee of Royalty Farms, there was probable cause to arrest Plaintiff for criminal trespass; she acknowledged receiving an emailed warning and defying it and she was aware of the court order. View "Squires-Cannon v. Forest Preserve District of Cook County" on Justia Law

In Hike I, Leo and Joanna Hike filed a petition of appeal seeking compensation after the State exercised its power of eminent domain in 2008 to acquire a parcel of the Hikes’ property for an expansion of a highway. The Supreme Court affirmed the jury verdict rendered in the case. In 2011, before the trial in Hike I, the State’s independent contractor began construction on the property taken from the Hikes. That same month, Leo noticed damage to the brick veneer of his and Joanna’s residence. The court precluded the Hikes from offering any evidence concerning the structural damage. In 2015, the Hikes filed the instant action claiming the same structural damage that they attempted to offer as evidence in Hike I. The trial court dismissed the complaint, finding that the claim was barred by the relevant statute of limitations. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the two-year statute of limitations period set forth in section 25-218 governs inverse condemnation actions against the State; and (2) the district court did not err in determining that the Hikes’ claim is barred by the two-year statute of limitations. View "Hike v. State" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a landowner, filed suit challenging a comprehensive plan to extend sewer service to South Kent Island and a so-called Grandfather/Merger Provision designed to limit overdevelopment of the area. The Fourth Circuit rejected plaintiff's Fifth Amendment Takings Clause claim, holding that he failed to show that either the extension of sewer service or the Grandfather/Merger Provision goes too far in interfering with his property so as to require compensation. The court also held that there was no substantive due process violation as to the sewer service because plaintiff never had an entitlement to receive sewer service; there was no substantive due process violation as to the Grandfather/Merger Provision because it is a patently legitimate government action; and there was no violation of the Equal Protection Clause where plaintiff failed to show that any difference in treatment plaintiff suffered was rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment in all respects. View "Quinn v. Board of County Commissioners" on Justia Law

VR Acquisitions, LLC (VRA) owned a roughly 6,700-acre property in Utah’s Jordanelle Basin. VRA brought this action in 2015, asserting three federal constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and five state-law claims. All claims rested, to some degree, on VRA’s assertion that an invalid assessment lien was recorded against the property three years before VRA bought the property. The district court dismissed all eight claims with prejudice under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), and VRA appealed. Because the district court properly dismissed VRA’s section 1983 claims for lack of prudential standing, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of those claims with prejudice. But because the district court should have declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over VRA’s state-law claims, the Tenth Circuit reversed its dismissal with prejudice of those claims and remanded with directions for the district court to dismiss those claims without prejudice. View "VR Acquisitions v. Wasatch County" on Justia Law

The Nebraska Cooperative Republican Platte Enhancement (N-CORPE), a political subdivision of the State of Nebraska, brought condemnation proceedings against Appellant seeking an easement across Appellant’s real estate. In response, Appellant filed a complaint for injunction against board members of the N-CORPE project and N-CORPE (collectively, Appellees), alleging, inter alia, that N-CORPE does not have the power of eminent domain. In addition, Appellant filed an application for temporary restraining order and a motion for temporary injunction, both of which the district court denied. The district court then granted Appellees’ motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) N-CORPE had the authority to exercise the power of eminent domain; (2) N-CORPE did not need certain permits and approvals as alleged by Appellant; (3) the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Appellant’s motion to amend the complaint; (4) N-CORPE is not prohibited by common law from removing ground water from overlying land; and (5) there is not material issue of fact regarding whether the condemnation is for a public use. View "Estermann v. Bose" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs suffered from disabilities, for which each was prescribed an emotional support animal. Each woman obtained a dog. This violated the “no dogs” rule of their condominium association. Plaintiffs each sought an accommodation for an emotional support animal by filing paperwork, with a doctor’s letter prescribing an emotional support animal, and a dog certification. Other residents became upset about the presence of the dogs. The condominium board voted to impose a fine. When a new Board President took office, the Board granted the accommodation requests and waived the accrued fines. Plaintffs filed suit under the Fair Housing Act, alleging that the association denied their reasonable requests for accommodation (42 U.S.C. 3604(f)(3)(B)) and interfered with the exercise of their fair housing rights (42 U.S.C. 3617). Plaintiff Walters committed suicide while her case was pending. The district court dismissed Walters’ Fair Housing Act claims entirely due to her death and rejected Kromenhoek’s claims on the merits. The Third Circuit reversed. The survival of claims under the Fair Housing Act is not governed by Section 1988(a), but by federal common law, under which a claim survives the death of a party. There were genuine issues of material fact regarding the merits of the claims. View "Revock v. Cowpet Bay West Condominium Association" on Justia Law

Respondent filed a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to force the West Virginia Department of Highways, Division of Highways (DOH) to institute a condemnation proceeding for limestone it excavated from a certain parcel of land during its construction of a portion of the Corridor H highway. The mandamus proceeding was resolved through an agreed order whereby the DOH was required to institute a condemnation proceeding against Respondent’s mineral interest in the property. After a jury trial, the circuit court awarded Respondent $941,304.53 as just compensation for the removal of the limestone from the property. The circuit court subsequently determined that Respondent was entitled to attorney’s fees and expenses for both the mandamus proceeding and condemnation proceeding. The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding (1) an award of attorney’s fees and expenses was warranted in this case; but (2) the final order was devoid of factual findings regarding the reasonableness of the amount of the attorneys fees and expenses awarded. Remanded for an additional hearing on that issue. View "West Virginia Department of Transportation, Division of Highways v. Newton" on Justia Law

Defendant, a homeowner in Rancho Palos Verdes, submitted an application to his HOA, seeking to invoke the HOA's dispute resolution process against a neighbor who refused to trim trees blocking defendant's views. Plaintiff, another neighbor and HOA member, filed suit against defendant and the HOA, alleging that two of the offending trees were actually on his property, that the relevant tree-trimming covenant did not encumber his property, and therefore that defendant and the HOA were wrongfully clouding his title by seeking to apply such an encumbrance. The trial court granted defendant's special motion to strike the claims alleged against him under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16, the anti-SLAPP statute. The court concluded that defendant made a prima facie showing that plaintiff's complaint arose from defendant's statements made in connection with an issue of public interest. Therefore, defendant's statements were protected under section 425.16. The court also concluded that plaintiff could not show a probability of success on the merits of his claims against defendant, particularly because defendant dismissed his application shortly after the lawsuit was filed and has never sought to invoke the HOA's tree-trimming process against plaintiff. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Colyear v. Rolling Hills Community Association" on Justia Law