If the oral argument is any indication, the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to rule against a landowner in Florida who filed a takings lawsuit against an Orlando-area water district – turning what appeared to be an easy victory for property rights advocates into a loss.

The Second District Court of Appeal has ruled that the City of Los Angeles's ban on billboards advertising offsite businesses is not content-based and therefore not subject to the "strict scrutiny" test under free-speech clauses in either the U.S. or California constitution.

Overturning a trial judge, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled that the private water company Cadiz Inc. and two public agencies did not violate the California Environmental Quality Act in moving forward a groundwater pumping and restoration project in San Bernardino County.

An outdoor advertising company that erected a billboard without permits in the City of Corona was not discriminated against and did not have its constitutional rights violated by the city's action, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled.

Under Proposition 22, neither the state Board of Equalization nor a county auditor-controller can constitutionally withhold tax funds as part of a redevelopment dispute, as called for by AB 1484, the 2012 bill that cleaned up the redevelopment wind-down, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal has blocked the City of Anaheim's attempt to build a surface parking lot on a property adjacent to two new hotels rather than a parking structure, as was implied in a conditional use permit the city approved in 1999.

In repealing a medical marijuana ordinance that a referendum sought to overturn, the Kern County Board of Supervisors erred in also repealing the underlying ordinance that the referendum's backers were seeking to reinstate, the Fifth District Court of Appeal has ruled. It's the third appellate ruling in a medical marijuana zoning case to be issued in the last month.

A state law that prohibits charter cities from receiving state funds for a public construction project if it allows the contractors to not pay prevailing wage has been upheld by a split appellate court.

In a split decision, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled that the City of Carson acted properly in denying the subdivision of a mobile home park because this change in ownership structure was inconsistent with the general plan by placing at risk wetlands within the park, which were reclaimed from contaminated oil friends and are called out in the open space element of the city's general plan.

In a 61-page opinion, the Third District Court of Appeal has ruled that the Department of Fish & Wildlife's actions in managing coastal flooding around Lake Tolowa and Lake Earl in Del Norte County constituted a physical taking of the adjacent landowners' property.

The recent Brexit vote seemed a lot like the typical California NIMBY fight to me: Basically, a whole bunch of old white people who don’t like how society is evolving tried to shut the door, probably screwing their own children and grandchildren in the process.

Writing recently in Voice of San Diego , Maya Srikrishnan has documented what might be called – at least from my wizened perspective – the return of the coastal Southern California anti-growth initiative. In Del Mar, Costa Mesa, and Santa Monica – one coastal town in each SoCal coastal county – citizens have placed initiatives on this fall’s ballot to slow down growth or at least require that major projects must go before voters.