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After years of heartache and litigation, Tom and Ayda Hamanns’ fight concluded last week when the Heart Mountain Irrigation District agreed to settle...
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A yearslong property rights battle ends with a positive settlement for Wyoming ranchers; a celebrated activist sues Washington state over crushing fines; and PLF attorneys file our third lawsuit challenging discriminatory restrictions on Arkansas public boards.
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Ranching family settles lawsuit holding government accountable for property damage
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Tom and Ayda Hamann’s nightmarish saga with the Heart Mountain Irrigation District (HMID) began in 2016 when HMID claimed a right to build a road through their property—and refused to take no for an answer. In 2018, an HMID employee entered their property with a crew and heavy equipment and began construction on the disputed road. Ignoring the Hamanns’ protests, the crew demolished fencing and other infrastructure, striking Tom with an excavator bucket and causing permanent brain damage.
After years of heartache and litigation—with HMID refusing to take responsibility—the Hamanns’ fight concluded last week when the irrigation district agreed to a $30,000 settlement for the damage its employees caused to the Hamanns’ property.
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Celebrated Washington state activist challenges crushing government fines
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For two decades, Tim Eyman was Washington’s most prolific citizen activist, sponsoring 17 statewide ballot initiatives. His most notable success, Initiative 695, slashed car tab fees to $30 and proved wildly popular with voters—saving taxpayers an estimated $750 million in its first year alone. Washington’s political establishment despised him for it.
In 2017, the state sued Tim for campaign finance reporting violations. After years of costly litigation, a trial court imposed $2.6 million in fines plus $2.8 million in attorney fees. With 12% interest, the judgment now exceeds $8 million and increases by $700,000 each year. Worse still, the court also barred Tim from holding any financial role in political committees—effectively ending his career.
Now, he’s fighting back with a constitutional challenge, citing Eighth Amendment protections against excessive fines—a principle more than 800 years old that dates back to Magna Carta.
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Michigan woman asks Supreme Court to end state's home equity theft workaround
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After a devastating fire cost Faytima Howard nearly everything she owned, struggles to recoup insurance coverage for necessary repairs led to mounting property tax bills until eventually her county foreclosed on her family home. The county then sold the home at auction for nearly twenty times what she owed—and didn’t return a single penny in excess equity.
Under the Constitution’s Takings Clause, as the Supreme Court confirmed in PLF’s landmark property rights victory in Tyler v. Hennepin County
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, the government must pay property owners like Faytima for any excess value beyond the debt owed. Now, we’ve joined Faytima in asking the Supreme Court to review her case and close Michigan’s bureaucratic trap that makes it nearly impossible for victims like Faytima to reclaim what’s rightfully theirs.
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Wall Street Journal: When the bureaucrats come for therapy dolphins
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Eliza Wille is a psychotherapist who specializes in the use of dolphin encounters as experiential therapy for people struggling with addiction and mental illness. She tells us that patients who found it difficult to talk about their problems in the office opened up after swimming with the dolphins.
But in 2021, a low-level National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration bureaucrat effectively banned the practice Eliza built her life around, prohibiting anyone from swimming within 50 yards of Hawaiian spinner dolphins. Violations of the edict can result in up to $20,000 in fines or even jail time.
In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, PLF attorney Michael Poon summed up the bizarre ruling as “the nanny state for dolphins.”
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Why rescinding the Roadless Rule empowers environmental innovation
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This year marks a quarter of a century since more than one million Americans broke the record for comments written to a federal agency on a proposed regulation. The recipient? The United States Forest Service. And the subject? The Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
Now, 25 years later, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has proposed rescinding the Rule once and for all—potentially opening up millions of acres of national forestland for Americans’ productive use.
As PLF legal fellow Sydney Madigan notes, “Unburdened by the Roadless Rule, Americans will be freed to innovate, steward, and protect our country’s great resources.”
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Nebraska’s cruel crackdown threatens vital care for adults with developmental disabilities
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The Nebraska Constitution grants lawmaking power exclusively to the state’s legislative branch. But far too often, state agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) sidestep their procedural rulemaking requirements by imposing sweeping mandates in the form of “guidance documents.”
Earlier this year, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of Integrated Life Choices—one of Nebraska’s largest service providers for adults with developmental disabilities. The suit challenges a 2024 DHHS “guidance document” that rewrote the rules for every provider in the state, threatening to disrupt care for thousands of Nebraskans.
This week, PLF’s Brittany Hunter brings us a closer look at ILC’s fight—as told by the company’s COO Justin Solomon. “You can’t let them just keep rolling over you,” Justin tells us. “We’ve seen what happens when every action gets a little bolder… people give up if you don’t give them something to fight for.”
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Scholar sues Arkansas for discriminatory racial quota law
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On Wednesday, PLF attorneys filed a lawsuit challenging race-based membership restrictions for Arkansas’ state Ethics Commission. As written, state law requires that a seat on the Commission be reserved for a racial minority—a mandate that even the state’s attorney general has said is unconstitutional.
Now, PLF client Jay Greene—a retired professor with over 25 years of experience studying the importance of education, equality, and opportunity—is taking a stand. We’re proud to represent him in his fight.
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Removing barriers to homebuilding can help solve our homelessness crisis
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From 2007 to 2024, more than $100 billion in public funding was allocated to the fight against homelessness in the United States. Yet, in that same period, the homeless population increased.
PLF’s latest report suggests that a lack of housing and affordability—not mental illness or alcohol and drug abuse—is related to higher levels of homelessness across the country, and that removing excessive barriers to homebuilding—not increasing funding—is one of the best ways to solve our current homelessness crisis.
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