Monthly Archives: September 2022

Today, an excellent Student Program started off the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference at William & Mary law school. Named in recognition of Toby Prince Brigham and Gideon Kanner for their lifetime contributions to private property rights and their efforts to advance constitutional protection of property, the conference began in 2004 and continues to this day.  The conference is designed to bring together members of the bench, bar, and academia to explore recent developments in the law that affect property rights. The Brigham Kanner Prize is awarded each year to an individual whose work affirms that property rights are fundamental to protecting individual liberty. For 2022, the Prize will be given to James Burling, Vice President of Legal Affairs at the Pacific Legal Foundation.

In response to an emergency ordinance recently approved by the Town of Vail to suspend all permits for any activity on Vail Resorts’ property in East Vail, Colorado, pending the filing of a condemnation action to preclude a planned affordable housing project, OCA Member Sarah Kellner has filed a lawsuit against the Town calling its actions both “drastic and unprecedented.” Vail Resorts objects to the emergency ordinance because the town was well aware of the proposed workforce housing project for months and even years. “A town cannot circumvent its own code by creating its own emergency,” the lawsuit states. The lawsuit also contends that Vail has permitted other projects “squarely in the middle” of bighorn sheep range but has raised environmental impacts as a reason for preventing Vail to build its project “on the very edge of that same range.” The lawsuit asks the court to overturn the emergency ordinance and require the town to issue permits as needed for the project.