Supreme Court update

We’ve had a bit of action on the four land use related cases pending before the US Supreme Court, discussed here and here.  Oral arguments are being held today in the case of Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States.  The issue in the case:

Whether the United States retained an implied reversionary interest in rights-of-way created by the General Railroad Right of Way Act of 1875 after the underlying lands were patented into private ownership.

Tomorrow, oral arguments will be held in McCullen v. Coakley, the issues of the case being:

(1) Whether the First Circuit erred in upholding Massachusetts’s selective exclusion law – which makes it a crime for speakers other than clinic “employees or agents . . . acting within the scope of their employment” to “enter or remain on a public way or sidewalk” within thirty-five feet of an entrance, exit, or driveway of “a reproductive health care facility” – under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, on its face and as applied to petitioners; (2) whether, if Hill v. Colorado permits enforcement of this law, Hill should be limited or overruled.

The case of Mount Holly v. Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action was settled prior to oral arguments.  A copy of a press briefing about the terms of the settlement is here.  The issue of the case was whether disparate impact claims are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act.  An interesting audio article about the case is here (approximately 6 minutes).

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