Stephen S. Davis

Partner

sdavis@TrueNorthLawGroup.com
Office: 314.296.4000
Direct: 314.296.4003

Stephen S. Davis is a partner with True North Law LLC, specializing in Fifth Amendment takings litigation and election law in trial and appellate courts.  Steve has litigated extensively in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and state and federal courts in Missouri and often represents property-rights organizations and scholars as amici curiae in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Prior to private practice, Steve served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri and the Chief Clerk and Administrator of the Missouri House of Representatives.  Steve has been an adjunct law professor at Saint Louis University teaching election law.  He also served on the Missouri Capitol Commission and is past-chairman and continues to serve on the Missouri Bar Advisory Committee on Civic Education.  He has held various leadership positions in the J. Reuben Clark Law Society and currently serves on its national Student Chapter Development Committee.  Steve also serves on the Federalist Society’s national Environmental Law and Property Rights Executive Committee.  He also currently chairs the Missouri Chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association.

Steve is a frequent speaker at Missouri Bar seminars as well as national conferences on Fifth Amendment takings litigation and election law.  Recently, he was a plenary speaker at the 2022 Missouri Bar Annual Meeting and Judicial Conference and a panel speaker at the 2023 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation national conference.  As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, the St. Louis Business Journal recognized Steve as one of the St. Louis region’s “Top 40 Under 40” achievers in business, government, and nonprofit leadership.  In 2016, the Missouri Bar awarded Steve its Warren Solomon Civic Virtue Award.  Judges of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri have repeatedly appointed Steve as a member of the court’s ad hoc Magistrate Judge Appointment Panels.

Having a deep interest in Missouri legal history, Steve was selected as a member of the Missouri Humanities Council’s and State Historical Society of Missouri’s “Show-Me Missouri Speakers Bureau,” where he speaks across the state to various groups and organizations on Missouri legal history and Missouri election law.

Featured News:

April 12, 2023

Federalist Society publishes Steve Davis’ analysis of the Tyler v. Hennepin County case pending at the Supreme Court.

April 10, 2023

American Bar Association publishes article by Steve Davis on Tyler v. Hennepin County Supreme Court case.

Feb. 13, 2023

Steve Davis elected Chair of the Missouri Chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association

Feb. 2, 2023

Steve Davis presents at the 2023 ALI-CLE Eminent Domain & Land Valuation Litigation national conference on the self-executing character of the Fifth Amendment’s Just Compensation Clause

Dec. 7, 2022

True North Law’s Steve Davis appointed to the Board of Governors of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims Bar Association

December 1, 2022

American Bar Association publishes article by Steve Davis on Wilkins v. United States Supreme Court case

Nov. 21, 2022

Federalist Society publishes case analysis by Steve Davis of Wilkins v. United States U.S. Supreme Court case

Oct. 3, 2022

American Bar Association publishes article by Steve Davis on Sackett v. EPA U.S. Supreme Court case

Sept. 26, 2022

Missouri Lawyers Weekly profiles Steve Davis, “one of Missouri’s most prominent election lawyers,” presenting at the Missouri Bar Annual Meeting

Sept. 15, 2022

Steve Davis to address plenary session of Missouri Bar Annual Meeting on “Conducting Free & Fair Elections”

Sept. 8, 2022

True North Law files U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief in Ariyan v. Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans  

Litigation Highlights

US Supreme Court

• Ariyan v. Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans, counsel of record for amici curiaeReason Foundation, Southeastern Legal Foundation, National Assoc. of Reversionary Property Owners, and Professor James W. Ely, Jr., in support of the petition for certiorari, asking the Supreme Court to take up and reverse the Fifth Circuit’s decision denying seventy landowners “just compensation” for the taking of their land.  Louisiana state courts ruled the state must pay these landowners compensation, but the state refused to do so, saying the legislature did not appropriate the compensation.  This amicus brief asserts that the landowners’ Fifth Amendment right to “just compensation” is self-executing and does not depend upon legislative grace.
• Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, co-counsel for petitioners, Arizona voters challenging the Arizona state legislative redistricting plan as unconstitutional for violating the fundamental “one person, one vote” principle of the Equal Protection Clause.
• St. Bernard Parish Government v. United States, co-counsel for 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., pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  This complex, decade-long litigation resulted in a landmark decision by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, holding the government liable for a taking for the flooding of New Orleans landowners’ property caused by the government’s construction and operation of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.
• Trinity Lutheran Church v. Pauley, co-counsel for amicus curiae National Association of Evangelicals filing an amicus brief in support of the church in a challenge to Missouri’s prohibition on public aid to religious schools (Missouri’s Blaine Amendment).
• Bridge Aina Le’a v. Hawaii, No. 20-54, co-counsel for amici curiae Owners’ Counsel of America, NFIB Small Business Legal Center, National Association of Reversionary Property Owners, Reason Foundation, and Professor Shelley Ross Saxer in support of a petition for certiorari from an adverse Ninth Circuit decision involving a regulatory taking of property.
• Brott v. United States, No. 17-712, co-counsel for group of Michigan property owners in a 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 claims against the United States seeking over $10,000 in an Article III court with the claim decided by a jury.  The landowners’ petition for certiorari was supported by multiple amici curiae briefs filed by eminent property-rights organizations and scholars.
• Brandt v. United States, co-counsel for amicus curiae Cato Institute, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Land Title Association, Public Lands Council, American Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and law professors Richard Epstein, James Ely, Donald Kochan, and Dale Whitman: The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Brandt family and issued a landmark decision protecting property owners’ rights as urged by the amici.

US Court of Appeals 

• Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC v. 3.921 Acres of Land in Lake County, FL, et al., __ F.4th __ (11th Cir. July 25, 2023), served as co-counsel representing landowner whose land was taken for interstate natural gas pipeline in second Eleventh Circuit appeal, successfully arguing, under the circuit’s prior-precedent rule regarding circuit’s prior decision in Sabal Trail Transmission v. 18.27 Acres (see below), that where a private entity uses federal eminent domain power under the federal Natural Gas Act, Florida state substantive law supplies the rule of decision in determining what compensation the condemnor must pay the landowner.
• Behrens v. United States, 59 F.4th 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2023), served as co-counsel representing amicus curiae Professor James Ely, Jr., in major Missouri Trails Act taking case regarding property law principles of Missouri law.
• Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC v. 18.27 Acres of Land in Levy County, FL, et al., 59 F.4th 1158 (11th Cir. 2023), served as co-counsel representing landowner whose land was taken for interstate natural gas pipeline, successfully arguing that where a private entity uses federal eminent domain power under the federal Natural Gas Act, Florida state substantive law supplies the rule of decision in determining what compensation the condemnor must pay the landowner and that the circuit’s prior-precedent rule governs in this appeal.
• Brott v. United States, 858 F.3d 525 (6th Cir. 2017), co-counsel for a group of Michigan property owners in a 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 restrictions of federal court jurisdiction and denial of jury trial (see petition for certiorari above).
• Lee, et al. v. Virginia State Board of Elections, et al. (4th Cir. 2017), co-counsel for the Commonwealth of Virginia in appeal affirming trial court’s ruling for the Commonwealth regarding the state’s voter photo-identification statute from challenge under the Voting Rights Act. 
• Kloeckner v. Solis, 639 F.3d 834 (8th Cir. 2011), successful defense of US government on appeal in “mixed” CSRA/employment discrimination claims resulting in clear, favorable 8th Circuit precedent, petition for cert. granted, US Supreme Court opinion at 133 S. Ct. 596 (2012).

US District Court

• Jackson, et al. v. United States, 155 Fed. Cl. 689 (2021), co-counsel for dozens of Georgia property owners at U.S. Court of Federal Claims trial in Atlanta regarding valuation of over 50 properties and determination of the amount of “just compensation” the federal government must pay.  Trial resulted in a 100% win for the landowners.
• Lee, et al. v. Virginia State Board of Elections, et al. (No. 3:15CV357, E.D. Va.), co-counsel for the Commonwealth of Virginia defending the state’s voter photo-identification statute from challenge under the Voting Rights Act.  After a two-week trial, the court ruled for Virginia on all counts.

Missouri Supreme Court

• Shoemyer v. Kander (No. SC94516), co-counsel for a consortium of Missouri agricultural groups defending the adoption of a state constitutional amendment by initiative petition.