Marzulla Law Blog
Taking Control of Mississippi River Flows
In 1954, the United States Army Corps of Engineers advised Congress of an impending economic catastrophe likely to result if the Government did not try to channel flows back into the lower Mississippi River that had been increasingly diverting into the Atchafalaya...
Taking Down a Diseased Tree on Sagamore Hill
The Sagamore Hill National Historic Site in Oyster Bay, New York is the former home of the twenty-sixth President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. Sagamore Hill is now maintained by the National Park Service. In March 2019, Looks Great Services, Inc. put in a...
Fifth Circuit Orders Fish & Wildlife to Reconsider Its Denial of Delisting Petition
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ordered the Fish & Wildlife Service to reconsider its rejection of a petition to remove the Texas golden-cheeked warbler from the endangered species list, holding that FWS’s decision was arbitrary and capricious....
January 23-25, 2010 ALI CLE Eminent Domain Conference
They’re coming for your water! If you want to hear more about your water rights and taking, please join me and my esteemed colleagues, Hertha Lund and Charles McFarland, next Thursday when we will be discussing the increased pressure for governmental entities to take...
Student Loan Debt—Pay Up
Faith Nelson took out $5,000 in educational loans, one for $2,500 in 1982 and the other for $2,500 in 1985. Nelson claimed that she had paid off both loans by May 21, 1986. But the Missouri Department of Higher Education disagreed and began garnishing her state and...
Which Way to the Ark?
At 11:30 p.m. on September 13, 2013, in Larimer County, Colorado, in response to a slow-moving cold front dropping record amounts of rainfall, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation opened the flood gates of the Olympus Dam, which Reclamation controls and operates as part of...
Federal Circuit Announces Expanded Federal Indian Trust Responsibilities
Just as the Department of the Interior thought that its Indian trust responsibilities were drawing to a close after the resolution of the massive Cobell Indian trust litigation, the Federal Circuit today opened up the flood gates to a whole new area of government...
High Court in the Deep Waters of State Sovereign Immunity and Copyright Protection
Frederick L. Allen, and his production company Nautilus Productions, have been the exclusive photographers of the shipwreck of Queen Anne’s Revenge since 1998. In 2013, Allen discovered that the State of North Carolina had allegedly been using his videos online...
Caring for Those Who Care for Our Veterans
As the Civil War drew to a close, President Lincoln spoke of the nation’s duty “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” Today the primary...
Gone for Good or Just Gone
Generally, the operation of the National Trails System Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1247(d), results in a compensable taking if the landowner possesses a “state law reversionary interest” in land subject to a railroad right-of-way that has been converted to trail use. The taking...