Sarasota, Florida Legacy Trail Case : ALERT
True North Law is responding to notices sent by Sarasota County to hundreds of Sarasota landowners. Sarasota County’s notices demand that landowners remove all “encroachments,” which include swimming pools, sheds, septic and drainage fields, patios, and other structures, from the Legacy Trail right-of-way on their property prior to February...
Amicus Brief in Hardy v. United States Trails Act Taking Case
On November 6, 2019, True North Law filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on behalf of property rights organizations and a prominent legal scholar in support of Georgia landowners whose land was taken by the federal government for a public recreational rail-trail. The Cato Institute, Southeastern Legal...
Sarasota FL – Legacy Trail Easement
This lawsuit is a Fifth Amendment taking case in which Sarasota County Florida landowners ask this Court to order the federal government to pay them for property the federal government took from them. The government took these owners’ land for the northern extension of the Legacy Trail between Sarasota and Venice. The Legacy Trail is a public...
Brandt v. United States amicus brief
(U.S. Supreme Court), 572 U.S. 93 (2014) We served as lead counsel for amici curiae Cato Institute, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Land Title Association, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Public Lands Council, and Property Law Professors James Ely, Jr., Richard Epstein, Donald Kochan, and Dale Whitman in a case filed by the U.S....
Brott v. United States
(U.S. Supreme Court) We represented a group of Michigan property owners in this Trails Act taking case, concurrently filed in both the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, challenging the Tucker Act’s prohibition on filing taking cases against the United States over $10,000 in an Article...
St. Bernard Parish Gov v. United States
Amicus Brief (U.S. Supreme Court) We represented amici curiae NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Reason Foundation, Southeastern Legal Foundation, National Association of Reversionary Property Owners, Property Rights Foundation of America, and Professor James W. Ely, Jr., in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the U.S. Supreme...
Lee v. Virginia State Board of Elections
(U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit), 188 F. Supp.3d 577 (E.D. Va. 2016), affirmed 843 F.3d 592 (4th Cir. 2016) Thor was appointed by Virginia’s Attorney General as special counsel for the Commonwealth of Virginia to defend the state’s photo-voter ID law. As lead trial and appellate counsel Thor successfully defended the Virginia...
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer
Amicus Brief (U.S. Supreme Court), 137 S.Ct. 2012 (2017) We served as counsel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and in the U.S. Supreme Court for the National Association of Evangelicals as an amicus party in this First Amendment religious freedom case. The case challenged the Missouri state constitution’s “Blaine Amendment,”...
Crawford v. Marion County Election Board
Amicus Brief (U.S. Supreme Court), 553 U.S. 181 (2008)Thor served as counsel for leadership of United States Senate and House of Representatives (Senators Mitch McConnell, Robert Bennett, Christopher S. "Kit" Bond and United States Representatives Roy Blunt, Lamar Smith and Vernon Ehlers) as amici curiae before the United States Supreme Court in...
West Chelsea Buildings, LLC v. United States
(U.S. Supreme Court) We represented property owners in New York City in takings litigation regarding the High Line, a popular elevated recreational park on the West Side of Manhattan. Those landowners sought to appeal their claims for compensation under the Fifth Amendment for the taking of their property to the U.S. Supreme Court.
