PLF filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit in the constitutional property rights case of Jisser v. City of Palo Alto. PLF represents the Jisser family, owners of the Buena Vista Mobile Park, in challenging the city's demand that the family pay their tenants an astronomical sum -- about $8 million -- as the price for permission to close their business and put their property to other uses.


PLF is appealing after the trial court, this past Friday, ruled against the Jissers on procedural grounds. "The crux of the decision is that the Jissers should have litigated all the way through California state courts before bringing their federal constitutional claims to federal court," said PLF attorney Larry Salzman. "Property rights are among the most important civil rights protected by the Constitution. Federal courthouse doors must remain open to people who have had their property rights violated, just like they are open to every other class of federal civil-rights plaintiffs."

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PLF Director of Communications Harold Johnson interviews PLF attorney and Director of the Liberty Clinic project, Larry Salzman, about their case titled Jisser v. City of Palo Alto. The Jisser family would like to get out of the mobilehome park business in Palo Alto as they look forward to retirement, but the City demands that they pay millions of dollars in "mitigation" payments to their tenants as a condition of receiving a permit to close the park.


                                             
                                                            
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The Mercury News featured an op-ed by PLF Attorney and Liberty Clinic Director Larry Salzman on PLF's Palo Alto based property rights case, Jisser v. City of Palo Alto. "Silicon Valley governments have all the power they need to build affordable housing on land purchased through voluntary transactions or on land they already own" says Salzman. "More fundamentally, they can approve permits to let much more housing be built -- including encouraging the Jissers to build on their own land. Threatening eminent domain, however, is a bullying and unconstitutional threat that should be taken off the table."


Alexander Cohen                           Michael Winer

PLF has named Alexander Cohen and Michael Winer to its Board of Trustees. Cohen is a partner in Latham & Watkins LLP, based in Washington, D.C. He serves as co-Chair of the firm's National Office, a central resource for clients and Latham lawyers facing complex issues arising under U.S. securities laws. Michael Winer is principal and senior member of the investment team of Third Avenue Management LLC, a New York-based investment advisory firm. Winer has managed the Third Avenue Real Estate Value Fund since its inception in 1998 and the Third Avenue Real Estate Opportunities Fund, L.P., since its inception in 2006. He began his career at Third Avenue Management in 1994.
                                             
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PLF Staff Attorney Wen Fa authored a blog post on PLF's stance on disparate impact. "PLF opposes disparate impact, a form of liability that brands an act (e.g. an employer's hiring practice) as discriminatory just because it does not produce the 'right' racial result" said Wen Fa. "There are many objections to disparate impact liability, but chief among these is that such liability leads to disparate treatment on the basis of race. In other words, statutory liability for disparate impact is at odds with the constitutional and moral imperative of racial neutrality."