On Wednesday, PLF attorney Jeremy Talcott delivered oral arguments at the California Supreme Court—on behalf of PLF client and veteran builder Tim Shea—in a high-stakes property rights case against the California Coastal Commission.

The dispute between Tim and the CCC dates back more than 20 years, when Tim purchased eight residential lots in the coastal community of Los Osos with the intention to build and sell a home on each one.

The first four builds went off without a hitch, but in 2017, after receiving approval from San Luis Obispo County to move forward with his plans to build on the remaining lots, the CCC appealed the County’s decision, forcing Tim into years of regulatory purgatory.

It’s official: PLF is heading back to the U.S. Supreme Court as co-counsel in a case that should shock the country. What happened to the Pung family could happen to anyone. They did nothing wrong, but Isabella County, Michigan, seized their home and auctioned it off for a fraction of its worth—because of a $1,600 school tax the family was legally exempt from. 

You can read more about the Pungs’ fight at the link below, and you can hear directly from the attorneys litigating the case if you join our online discussion on Wednesday, December 17.

On Tuesday, we released our newest short film telling the story of the California Coastal Commission, an out-of-control state agency that controls over 1.5 million acres of coastal land.

Through personal experience, archival footage, and legal history, the 13-minute film shows how a single bureaucratic agency became judge, jury, and executioner for California homeowners on the coast.

In July 2025, PLF attorneys filed an administrative appeal on behalf of Rebecca and Caleb Linck after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declared authority over an acre of their Idaho property in direct defiance of well-established Supreme Court precedent. Fortunately, the Lincks can breathe a little easier this week after an Army Corps appeals official ruled that agency staffers wrongly claimed federal control of their property.

“The Supreme Court definitively ruled in Sackett that the EPA and U.S. Army Corps have limited power to regulate wetlands—not broad authority over any property in sight of a puddle,” said PLF attorney Charles Yates. “This ruling demonstrates that U.S. Army Corps leadership recognizes the need to abide by the Court’s ruling.”

In 2025, the CCC imposed an astronomical $2.4 million in fines on John Levy, alleging that he is blocking access to public areas and ordering him to tear down structures on his Carlsbad property, including a gate that the City had approved years earlier.

Now, PLF attorneys have joined John in a lawsuit challenging the CCC for acting as prosecutor, judge, and beneficiary—in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Americans have a right to due process before being hit with punitive fines. Furthermore, before the government seeks to impose ruinous financial penalties, it must provide substantial procedural safeguards to prevent wrongful deprivations.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker recently signed legislation rewriting the state’s scholarship rules—and abruptly ending a decades-old race-exclusive program. The change will moot a federal equal protection challenge we filed on behalf of The American Alliance for Equal Rights in October 2024.

The Washington Post: Even Trump’s EPA can’t get it quite right on this silly wetlands law 

National Review: Congress Should Stop Passing the Buck to the Bureaucracy 

National Review: Speaker Johnson Proves the Necessity of Reviving the Nondelegation Doctrine