- Discussion about the Kohler Act and its limitations on coal mining
- Debate over whether the act is a reasonable regulation or a violation of property rights
- State Supreme Court found the act constitutional, but the Supreme Court reversed the decision, stating it was a taking of property
- Analysis of the opinion and disagreement over its characterization as a case of a single private house
- Recognition of broader implications and potential for differing opinions in similar situations.

- The video discusses a case involving damage to a house and whether it constitutes a public nuisance.
- The court ruled that the damage was only a nuisance to the clubhouse, not the public, and therefore did not justify taking away their right to mine.
- There is a strong basis in common law for the state to regulate nuisances, but this case does not fall under that power.
- The video raises the question of whether this case is isolated or important.
- The principle discussed is that overregulation can constitute taking, and the court ruled that the regulation in this case made mining unprofitable.
- The video also explores the difference in focus between this case and others, with this case focusing on the value of the coal to be mined.
- The video raises the question of whether this case has any utility or importance beyond the specific situation in Pennsylvania.
- The video highlights the difference in approach between Holmes' and Brandeis' opinions and the modern legislation and judicial decisions.
- The video concludes that this case may be a reminder of past approaches and raises questions about where the decision now stands.

- The case being discussed is different from previous cases in terms of the nature of the litigation.
- The majority opinion in the case argues that restricting Pennsylvania coal companies' mining rights would infringe on their constitutional right to contract.
- The line between public safety impacts and the right to contract is not clear and requires analysis of previous cases.
- The case involves a Pennsylvania statute that restricts the ability to profit off of a farm due to concerns about subsidence and its effects on buildings and farming.
- The petitioners argue that certain sections of the act violate the takings and contracts clauses.
- The court upholds the act, stating that it serves substantial and legitimate legislative purposes.
- The difference between this case and a previous case is that in this case, the coal companies are still allowed to mine to a great extent, but must stop at a point to prevent land collapse.
- The purpose of the act is seen as a distinction between the two cases, as it serves the public interest in preventing damage from excessive mining.
- The question is whether the two cases can be reconciled or if this case represents a silent overruling of the previous case.

- The court ruled that the statute in question was motivated by a public purpose, not a desire to protect private parties.
- The legislation in Pennsylvania was about extending surface rights for private parties, not related to public interest.
- The court found that there was no significant deprivation that would constitute a regulatory taking.
- The court emphasized that if the regulation does not inhibit the ability to make money, it is not considered a taking.
- Holmes' opinion did not address the issue of commercial impracticality, but acknowledged that police powers for health and safety could be used to restrict private rights.
- The distinction between the two cases is that the Kohler Act applied specifically to private parties, while the Subsidence Act addressed the general public problem of collapsing surfaces.
- The court suggested that the risk allocation has shifted from landowners to mining companies, holding each party responsible for the risks they assumed in their contracts.
- Modern courts have distinguished Holmes' opinion without overruling it, looking at the legislation as a whole.
- The changing uses of land over time can affect the classification of a public nuisance.
- The difference in approach to state statutes regulating land use has shifted towards Brandeis' opinion in the dissent.
- Brandeis' dissent raises valid points that Holmes may have missed.

- The video discusses a shift in approach and modernization of the judicial approach to legislation and property rights.
- The case mentioned involves a change in legislation that contradicts the approach taken by Justice Holmes.
- The courts seem to be adopting a more consistent approach with Justice Brandeis.
- The nature of legislation has changed and developed in line with Brandeis' approach.
- The case of Sheldon Pratt and the reclassification of lakes as public property is discussed.
- The legislature's exercise of police power to change water rights is compared to the South Dakota case and hunting licenses.
- The underlying rules remain the same, but the application has changed due to population growth and the need for conservation.

- The video discusses the concept of preservation and the state's authority over regulating natural resources.
- The parallel between the regulation of wild animals and natural resources is highlighted.
- The growth of population and a change in government responsibility have led to the requirement of hunting licenses.
- The discussion also touches on the responsibility of federal and state governments in controlling natural resources, using the example of the Mississippi River.
- The waters in question are not navigable and are owned by one party, making them inaccessible to the public.
- The purpose of the legislation in the case is believed to be preserving rice harvesting practices of Native Americans in Minnesota.
- The relationship between the legislation and the facts of the case is unclear, but it is suggested that the Ojibwe people may not have access to the lake due to it being public property.
- The restrictions on using mechanical harvesters may apply to public land where the Ojibwe conduct their rice harvesting.
- The video ends with a discussion about the difficulty for the Ojibwe to access the lake and the need for further exploration of the topic.

- The video discusses the Kohler Act and its limitations on coal mining, sparking a debate over whether it is a reasonable regulation or a violation of property rights.
- The State Supreme Court found the act constitutional, but the Supreme Court reversed the decision, stating it was a taking of property.
- The video explores the implications of this case and the differing opinions it may generate in similar situations.
- It raises the question of whether this case has broader importance beyond the specific situation in Pennsylvania.
- The video highlights the difference in approach between Holmes' and Brandeis' opinions and the modern legislation and judicial decisions.
- The case involves a Pennsylvania statute that restricts the ability to profit off a farm due to concerns about subsidence and its effects on buildings and farming.
- The court upholds the act, stating that it serves substantial and legitimate legislative purposes.
- The court ruled that the statute in question was motivated by a public purpose, not a desire to protect private parties.
- The court found that there was no significant deprivation that would constitute a regulatory taking.
- The video discusses a shift in approach and modernization of the judicial approach to legislation and property rights.
- The case mentioned involves a change in legislation that contradicts the approach taken by Justice Holmes.
- The video also discusses the concept of preservation and the state's authority over regulating natural resources.
- The parallel between the regulation of wild animals and natural resources is highlighted.
- The discussion also touches on the responsibility of federal and state governments in controlling natural resources.
- The video ends with a discussion about the difficulty for the Ojibwe to access the lake and the need for further exploration of the topic.

I understand that you just come away from a discussion of the kilo.

What about the holding in the case though?

I mean, the holding, it makes sense from both perspectives.

Like it still was 1 of the public benefits of the city economically because it wasn't really that big.

They kind of did need that garden for some reason.

So it's important to say that yeah, you can use the Davis Falls to make the property.

Anyone want to add to that or subtract from it?

We're in the off-picking center, it's just like all takings of us.

But I think here is 1 of the best arguments against a public taking because of the questions about really is there a use here and are you just taking from 1 party to a private party that's not so necessary like the rest.

The first case that we have for today is a battle of giants, I suppose it's fair to say.

You have on 1 hand Oliver Wendell Holmes and Brandeis on the other side.

You may wonder whether we've made a real turning in a different direction from what the first part of this course has been about.

But I think in a way it's justified to do that for a couple of reasons.

1, because it certainly is a the passage of legislation which affecting which affects the rights of property owners has certainly been a feature of the recent history of the subject And it's important that we should know about it.

And 2, because many interesting private law questions are raised by the cases we have.

The first case that we discussed today, the effect of the Kohler Act is not only a battle of giants, but it's an interesting from a point of view of private law.

The private law is when there's a severance between the minerals and the surface, as you have in the case.

The mineral estate is the dominant estate.

That seems counterintuitive, but it is the law.

If there's a conflict between the surface owner and the owner of the minerals, it should be negotiated between them.

But if When push comes to shove, the mineral estate predominates over the surface estate.

And that does make sense, I think, although it does seem to be odd that that's the result, because the value of the land, whether there's oil or coal or whatever is mined there, is the more important of the 2 states.

It's the source of the wealth of the property and the use that will be made of the property.

And I think that, although it's not mentioned in the case, is relevant to the case as establishing the relative importance of the of the minerals.

And you wouldn't know that, I think, unless you knew something about the private law of estates.

And you see it in the background of the case.

But let's start out in looking at the relevant facts of the case and let's try to come to grips with it.

Who will volunteer to discuss the facts and the holding of the case?

So the Kohler Act more or less says that...

So, the Kohler Act puts limitations on what

So they put a limitation on where you can mine in terms of coal mining.

And It can't affect other properties from potentially sinking or anything like that.

So they have to mine it a certain distance away and they have to mine, they can't mine in certain places so that other property is damaged.

Let's try to do justice to the act itself.

under the sickness, which is where the land, which is where because they're mining in a similar area, it causes the land to sink under and then property to kind of give in.

You take away the support of the land and the land sinks.

The miners were arguing that because there's that limitation on where they can and can't mine, they have to leave some coal there and that's some coal they're not allowed to collect.

So the state Supreme Court found that there was constitutionally protected property rights, but that the state had devalued authority to the police powers.

And the Supreme Court reversed the state decision.

They found that statute of the lease over regulation of property is basically tantamount to taking.

And so they found that the restrictions on the coal miners in this case were to the point where it was pretty much a digging because it could be regulated to an extent, but at the point where they were saying we would expand mining in different areas, it was beyond the regulation that would be appropriate for the public.

Let's look a little bit more closely at the opinion itself.

On page 733, Holmes says, this is a case of a single private house.

This is the case of a single driver who I think can say that this is a taking that it's not just the only, this isn't the only house that they're not allowed to mine under.

If they're not allowed to mine under any house in Pennsylvania.

So saying this is a case of distinction on the house of indifference.

Yeah, I actually agree with Nicholas quite a bit here.

It felt like a weird way to represent the idea that any plaintiff has to have cause to sue.

So obviously they're going to be representing their single property interest unless they own a huge amount of property.

Like you said, disingenuous that the court wouldn't recognize that this is like a metonymy for the issue taking place across the entirety of the area.

It certainly has broader implications, doesn't it?

So it's a little bit odd to start out by saying this is a case of a single private house, but maybe it's useful to have that.

Maybe because it leaves room for development, it leaves room for difference of opinion in a slightly different situation.

Okay, let's try to take the case at face value.

A source of damage to such a house is not a public nuisance.

Yeah, they're saying because this isn't a public nuisance, it's only a nuisance to the clubhouse.

It's not like taking away their right to mine.

It's not for the public use, which would be justified.

Isn't there a point that there's a strong basis at the common law for the state to have a right to regulate nuisances?

Which would make it a stronger case if it was.

You have to point out that this case would not fall under that stronger power.

I'm trying to get at is the question, what do we take away from this case?

Does it have any importance or any utility beyond the little squabble in Pennsylvania?

What could be just the general principle that overregulation can constitute taking or are you looking for something deeper in that regard?

That's what I'm trying to raise the question.

Is this an isolated case or is it an important case?

The principle seems pretty broadly to have to make.

The over-explication of capacity-shaking over

At first, I thought this case felt like sort of an over application of that idea, but at least the excerpt that we had to read, I didn't feel like brought, like really focused on this idea that the court actually held that the act made it impracticable to mine.

I didn't like catch that the first time I read it, but to me that feels really critical that they essentially ruled that this act made it so that the businesses could not function at all in those areas.

And that would eventually become a key difference of whether they did or did not rule it as they were thinking.

So the rule Caleb brought up is true that regulation, if it goes too far, will be recognized as taking, but in this case, the court essentially said the regulation went almost as extreme as it possibly could by making mining totally unprofitable for the company.

1 thing that occurs to me is that the, this case is interesting because it focuses on the value of the coal that's to be mined, not on the overall effect of the Kohler Act.

In that sense, it seems to be a real difference between this case and some of the other cases that follow it.

I wanted to raise that question simply because it seems to be important in understanding what the utility of this case is.

think is when the court is looking at Keystone which is in this poll, they focus a lot on the fact that the legislature itself heavily justifies why it's creating the act as a public health responsibility.

And that seems to be something the judiciary is very heavily on, is the underlying reasoning that legislation will enact something for it, even if it seems to have sometimes identical outcomes.

I think it's because like thinking about other examples where this

applicable like say for instance going back to the case of the nets and the fishing rods if they were to then go and say well you can only, like you can't, if they were to say well first you can't fish with nets, then you can't fish with fishing rods during all hours but like 1 or 2 hours a day, well effectively you've taken away the right to fish by over-regulating.

So Holmes says that this is not a public incident, that this damage is not common or public.

It's like the house falls down, like a gas line caused the fire.

Like, it could cause damage to the neighboring community.

Brandeis talks about how there is a public, and that this is trying to prevent in terms of damage to the community and it's not necessarily private.

So I don't know how you necessarily see that distinction of the private house versus how it affects the local community that house falls down into the ground.

I think that there could be knock on effects for the community.

Yeah, there's no doubt that it has broader implications of what might happen.

I like in the notes, they talk about how homes and brand based agreeing on a later date, so I'm sure I'm a certain thing of tree, but like the public good, which I felt kind of like narrowed how what homes is distribution as like a public versus a private.

So I don't know, I just also had like data people do it only that way.

Okay, Well, I think that's a point well taken.

Is there anything more to be said about the case or does it just stand out as a, what to call it, an exceptional situation which is not too relevant to the modern law of land use, where you have a good deal of legislation involved.

It does deal with legislation, the Kohler Act, but it focuses our attention not on the on that act itself, but rather on the circumstances in which the act was applicable to a common law situation.

of the differences between Pennsylvania Coal and bituminous is just the 60 years or so that spans between the 2 of them.

And it feels to me like the majority opinion in Pennsylvania Coal is more willing to place just personal responsibility on individuals who have contracts splitting surface from subsurface rights, whereas 60 years later the judiciary is more concerned with public welfare than it is with upholding contracts.

Yeah, I think that's certainly a relevant remark.

The date of the matter and the approach that homes take seem to be quite different, quite removed from what the modern legislation and the modern judicial decisions have turned out to be.

Maybe it's just a reminder that these issues have come up before and we've changed our mind or at least we've changed our approach to them.

And that's the question that I've been trying to raise before you, because I'm not sure myself of where this decision now lands us.

It certainly is a different approach than what we find in the other cases that we've read.

The approach that Holmes takes here, and Brandeis to some extent, is on the focus of the coal to be mined, not on the overall effect of the Kohler Act.

And that's, I think, something which marks this case off as different from the cases that follow.

And that's simply a comment on the nature of the litigation that's come before the courts.

And in that sense, I think Holmes' opinion, even in Brandeis' too, though to a lesser extent, It seems to be a holdover from a prior age and simply not to adopt the approach that is now prevalent in the courts.

So the majority opinion talked about how the restriction of Pennsylvania coal companies mining rights would be like a restriction on their constitutional right to contract.

But I guess when is the line drawn between like public safety impacts and when like the right to contract, when is that distinction?

Well I wish there were a clear answer to that question.

But I think we have to look at all the cases that we have and see how, the extent to which they can mark out a clear answer to that question.

And I think it's a difficult task to answer it, but we have to do the best we can in discussing it.

And the first 1 we have is of course, the case involving a Pennsylvania statute.

This was essentially a state legislation that restricted from being able to profit off of his farm, which I guess was well right.

So in Houston, the Pennsylvania legislature passed the Petunias Mine Subsidence and Land Conservation Act, which authorized the Department of Environmental resources to enforce a program to prevent or minimize subsidence and regulate its consequences.

And the purpose of this was because subsidence are lower in strata can have devastating effects on foundations, walls, and the integrity of houses and buildings.

It can cause sinkholes and affect farming.

So the petitioners contend that certain sections of the act, I believe it's sections 4 and 6, violate the takings clause, and then, or sorry, I think section 4 violates the takings clause and section 6 violates the contracts clause by impairing their right to fully mine the land and then exercise the right to tapes.

So this is a case which involves some of the same factors, some of the same problems that we just saw that we've been talking about.

And I think 1 of the main issues here was not that they couldn't mine period, but they were required to keep a certain amount of the coal beneath the surface so as not to compromise the structures that they were trying to protect with the act.

So as not to compromise the structural integrity of certain buildings.

That's right, yeah, but the land collapses if you take it all away.

required to keep something like 27 million tons underground, which was only a fraction of like the 1.6 billion tons that they would have been able to mine.

And so the District Court and Court of Appeals upheld the act.

And this was affirmed by the Supreme Court because they maintained that petitioners did not sufficiently show that the Subsidence Act constituted a taking for the holding in Pennsylvania coal.

And they said that the legislative purposes set forth in the act were both substantial and legitimate.

And that then the petitioners further contended that the diminution of value was so extreme as to constitute a taking.

Isn't this the same issue we've just been talking about?

And, but the court notes, I think that difference between like, they're still able to mine the coal, they're able to mine the great majority, the majority of the coal, and they reference the Kohler Act.

Okay, I just want to stop you again to stress the similarity of these 2 cases.

The difference is that in the prior case in Pennsylvania, Cole, they were, the act was purporting to not allow them to mine under this person's land period.

In this case, they are still allowed to mine to a very great extent.

They just have to stop at a point where it's going to cause the land to collapse.

Well, that was true in the prior case too.

It really feels like he's just trying to make artificial distinction.

I mean, in the 1 before, in the Kohler Act, the statute forbids mining coal and the way to cause substance of any structure used as a human habitation, with certain exceptions, and this does that in more specific rules.

It really feels like the way that I think Stevens characterizes the Pennsylvania cold case says abandoned the balancing act between private economic interests of coal companies against the private interests of service owners, which is seen, I mean, that is kind of how the government does it, but that's completely like arbitrary.

I don't know, this feels like he's kind of weave around the like really specific points, the previous ones you get to be like, basically just agree with Brian is the 70.

Because you notice that this case does not overrule the prior case.

It distinguishes it, the prior case from this.

And what I want to get to is, in what way is that defensible?

So the top of 740 period said, I think 1 of the differences is like the purpose of the act, because the court says that, unlike the Kohler Act, which was passed in Pennsylvania coal, the Subsidence Act in this case doesn't merely involve balancing private economic interests of coal companies against like the private interest of surface owners.

They have, there's a purpose of sort of serving the public interest in making sure that this land is a compromise, that there aren't sinkholes that are being caused because of excessive mining.

So I think that's something the court looks at is like the purpose of the legislation, I think might be a distinction, even though the facts might be kind of similar.

It's being looked at differently now because I guess this was in the 60s and at that point the like the property damage was so widespread from these mining projects I guess it just warranted but I guess use of the policing power is more than it did in the 20s.

But the question really is whether the 2 cases are harmonious, whether they can be reconciled, whether this is a different direction and a really a silent overruling of the prior case or whether it's convincing in the sense that the distinction can be drawn between this case and the case which upheld the rights of the property owner, the rights of the co-owner.

I think they are, just because it definitely seems as if the legislature and each of these cases had a different purpose for what they were doing.

Because it furthers the court notes that the petitioners were arguing that some aspects of the statute were requiring them to compensate private individuals and that therefore maybe the motivation wasn't for a public purpose.

And then the court says no, the statute was not motivated by desire to protect private parties.

The public purpose that motivated the enactment of the legislation is served by preventing the damage from occurring in the first place.

And then in Pennsylvania poll, what we were looking at was this legislation was sort of extending the surface rights a private party had to beneath the surface rights.

So it wasn't necessarily about, it wasn't even sort of peripherally related to public interest.

It was about a private party's right or how far that right extends over the land that they have purchased.

2 cases is that in the prior case, the overregulation kind of prevented the plaintiff from even trying to get the mining, the coal that was underneath the property.

But in this case, the court ruled that there wasn't any deprivation significant enough to kind of constitute that they couldn't even reach that coal.

I think that on page 746, it says that, in this case, by contrast, petitioners have not shown any deprivations for the MNF to satisfy the heavy burden placed upon 1 alleging a regulatory taking, so their claims must fail.

So they kind of said that basically, it's not commercially impractical for them to take the that's a that's the very bottom layer of the coal they could still make money off of it it's still profitable and that's the biggest difference the prior legislation kind of prevented it only this 1 is just a kind of a safety matter for the public interest and exercise of the police power.

But what does Holmes's opinion say about that?

Isn't that a real difference between the 2 cases?

Yeah, if you can't make money off of the, if based on the regulation, you are inhibited from making money off of the property, then that doesn't constitute a taking.

If the taking stops you from making money, stops you from having the freedom to continue your corporation or your business, then that's considered a taking.

But if not, then it's not, it's just a regulation.

But what does Holmes' opinion say about that?

He just vaguely says commercially impractical, impractical is fine.

But right after that, he said, it's true that we allow the legislature to require others to pull the left along the line of enjoying property for safety of employees.

So Even he is kind of like defining the previous cases very, very specifically about private rights.

And he even admits that police powers for health and safety could be used to do the same.

to come in, the humanist division, that's very good in that the decision that shows the distinction between 2 cases is that Justice Holmes explained that the Kohler Act was a private benefit statute since it ordinarily does not apply to land when the surface is owned by the owner of the coal.

So it's like, yeah, mining in a way that collapsed the surface would certainly be a public problem, like in the same way that Matt's characterizing it.

But when they're only applying the statute, when it specifically interferes with private parties, not when it's just the general public problem of collapsing a surface, then it feels very much more like private arbitration and not public use.

So your point is that this distinction which we can draw, really is of no real moment.

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Property (Helmholz) - Fall 2023