PLF clients celebrate victory in a settlement with the City of Healdsburg; Washington’s race-based housing assistance program is challenged; and Brazilian-born MMA fighter Renato “Money” Moicano becomes an official partner of Pacific Legal Foundation. 

Here’s what’s on The Docket. 

Victory! City backs down over exorbitant ‘inclusionary housing’ fee

Jessica and Chris Pilling own a duplex: They live in one half and rent out the other. But with three growing kids, they began to feel their duplex shrinking around them. So, the Pillings decided to subdivide their property and build a new family home—allowing them to rent both sides of the duplex, once construction was complete. 

What seemed like a win-win situation for renters and the housing-crunched City of Healdsburg soon turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. The Pillings were hit with an exorbitant “inclusionary housing” fee, nearly derailing their plans. They sued, with Pacific Legal Foundation’s help. Less than two months after filing the lawsuit, the City backed down. 

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Federal lawsuit aims to end racial discrimination in housing assistance

Last week, PLF attorneys filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR) challenging Washington’s Covenant Homeownership Program, which offers down payment and closing cost assistance to first-time homebuyers.  

The program is available only to a short list of preferred racial groups: If you’re Korean American, you might qualify—but if you’re Japanese American, you’re out of luck. But as PLF attorney Andrew Quinio says, “If the state chooses to offer public benefits, they must be open to all, regardless of race.”

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A Florida property owner is fighting back after facing a nearly $120,000 development fee

Mike Colosi, a Florida property owner represented by PLF, filed a federal lawsuit last week challenging unconstitutional government demands and seeking to end wrongful land and fee extortion.  

Under Charlotte County’s Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), Colosi faces a development fee of nearly $120,000 on the off-chance that a scrub-jay (a type of bird) might one day nest on his land. PLF has already fought and won similar cases in Florida and California. 

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PLF clients petition Michigan Supreme Court to recoup what is rightfully theirs

Last year PLF successfully defeated home equity theft at the U.S. Supreme Court. All nine Justices agreed it’s unconstitutional for the government to take more than it’s owed in property tax foreclosures. But a Supreme Court victory isn’t the end of the line: Now we’re representing two former Michigan homeowners who say the government is using complicated procedures to block them from recouping their rightful equity.

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Government kills pet squirrel P’Nut in Fourth Amendment horror story

New York environmental police raided a private home, seized a pet squirrel, and euthanized him—all because his owner didn’t have the right license. As PLF attorney Daniel Woislaw explains, these kinds of intrusions are commonplace and emblematic of the widespread disregard for Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights—but it doesn’t have to be this way. 

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PLF’s fight against government overreach goes mainstream: Renato ‘Money’ Moicano joins the team

Renato “Money” Moicano, the Brazilian-born mixed martial artist who used his UFC 300 victory speech to declare a love for the U.S. Constitution, is now an official partner of PLF. 

“My friends at Pacific Legal Foundation fight the law in court—and they win,” Moicano announced recently on social media. “They defend Americans for free when the government screws with their rights. And just like me, they love the U.S. Constitution.”

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Admin law, legitimacy, and the Roberts Court

Recent landmark Supreme Court decisions in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, SEC v. Jarkesy, and West Virginia v. EPA have drawn heavy criticism from journalists and academics, often lamenting the Court’s conservative majority and anti-regulatory bend.  

But as PLF senior legal fellow Will Yeatman argues, “these decisions are more properly conceptualized as constitutional checks on a worrisome concentration of authority in the Executive Branch.” 

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