Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) filed an amicus brief before the United States Supreme Court supporting George Sheetz, a California man who was told by his county that before he could build a home on his own private property, he needed to pay $23,420 for road improvements that had absolutely no relationship to him or his property. The brief marks the third time SLF has appeared as amicus before the Supreme Court supporting Mr. Sheetz’s case, who is back before the Court asking it to once again stop the assault on his private property by local government.
Mr. Sheetz owns land in El Dorado County, California. Ten years ago, he applied for a permit to build a home, but the county charged him over $23,000 to pay for road improvements that were unrelated to building his home before he could get the permit. Mr. Sheetz sued, claiming this was an unconstitutional taking. His case worked its way up to the Supreme Court with SLF’s amicus support, and the Court unanimously agreed in 2024 that his case deserved its day in court. Now, Mr. Sheetz is once again facing an attack on his rights that requires the Supreme Court to intervene.
Read More
After SLF and others urged the Supreme Court to accept review of Mr. Sheetz’s case in 2023, it agreed. In their brief on the merits, SLF and Beacon Center of Tennessee urged the Court to clarify that it does not matter whether a taking is done by law (like in Mr. Sheetz’s case) or administrative action, which was the basis the lower courts relied on when throwing out his case. A taking is a taking under the Bill of Rights. SLF and Beacon compared this case with Knight v. Nashville, a recent precedent-setting case they won in federal court on behalf of private property owners. In that case, the city of Nashville required property owners to either build new sidewalks or pay for the construction of sidewalks before they could build a home on their property.
The Supreme Court unanimously agreed, ruling that Mr. Sheetz should have his day in court regardless of the origins of the permit ordinance. But when the case went back down to the California court, the court ultimately upheld the permit condition as constitutional. In its third brief in three years, SLF joins Texas Public Policy Foundation, Manhattan Institute, and NFIB Small Business Legal Center to urge the Supreme Court to once again take up Mr. Sheetz’s case and rule that the permit condition placed on his property is unconstitutional.