Jeffrey Kleeger

Achieving equity in litigation is "good." It is about ensuring consideration is adequate. Achieving finality in cases is better, although there is a cost to pay for peace of mind. Disposing of cases at minimal cost with "equity" is best. This article is about defining the meaning of doing "good," aspiring for "better," and achieving "best" under the circumstances at issue in a matter. This article defines "goodness" as "civic virtue," as "equity," and as "law," with the philosophy of law as enforcer of private, moral rights. Put another way, liberty or personal autonomy is the essence of private law transactions with all participants seeking predominance, but how can everyone win? The legal sub-system of society structures litigation to seek prompt closure of cases encouraging equitably assigning rights and duties to promote certainty and stability in social relations. Law functions effectively when government intervenes minimally and allows individuals to exercise freedom. Windfall profits and corresponding losses will occur, but justice demands the rule of law is consistent. Aristotle instructed we should accept law as a "valid and binding" device helping us achieve the "good life," which is a life "worth living" as it promotes meaningful fulfillment and denies blind pursuit of self-interest. For Aristotle, these lofty ends result from harmoniously balancing competing rights and duties, imposing exceptions where legal rules fail, and seeking to secure the "expectation of expectations," instead of defeating the "other," and in this way, law upholds its binding effect (von Leyden, 1967, pp. 2-3). Relying on Aristotle's insight, this article explores fundamental questions including whether "an agreement" is "fair," "lawful," and "good?" This article considers how courts view legal matters to "work out" the validity and "goodness" of promises.

Law is a business. Education is a public good. Legal education must teach law students that the business of law is to promote the public good. Students are knowledge consumers. Law is one of several interconnecting social systems. Law study must focus on the multidisciplinary nature of law practice. The doctrinal Socratic Method pedagogy is inadequate in its present form. It fails to integrate theory with practice skills in accurate context. Good public service requires understanding how to use law to improve life. Traditional pedagogy instructs on meaning only peripherally, subordinating knowledge of purpose and action to theory. Students need instruction that more directly focuses on teaching problem-solving skills so students understand better how theory blends with action. Meanwhile, neoliberalism locates its subjects in a competitive market. Law study programs must take their consumers as they find them, transform thinking by developing skills of knowing and being, and promote competent practice skills by training using simulation. Successful reform of legal education requires integrating theory with practice skills and public good values, combining community-engaged critical service-learning with a foundational doctrinal base, adding context to experience and thereby broadening and deepening knowledge and understanding of law system functionality. This describes a meaningful and effective law study reform. Keywords: Socratic Method, critical service-learning, interdisciplinarity, legal education reform, multidisciplinary teaching, professionalism, case method

Excerpt: The Auburn Greens Unit 1 Homeowner's Association (HOA), in Placer County California, taped a notice on residents' doors informing them that as of January 1, 2018, a new Garage Door Policy would be effective. The policy would require all garage doors be kept open between the hours of eight and four, Monday to Friday. The reason for the rule was illegal tenants were found in the community. The board believed the new policy was necessary to identify illegal tenants. The punishment for violating the rule would be a $200 fine. A nine-year-old boy in the community noted with concern, "I don't think it's a good idea because they are going to steal my bike".1 While it's unclear who he thought would steal his bike, it is clear he thought that leaving it unattended in his open garage was ill-advised.

Law is a means to an end. The state has always claimed it uses law as a tool to promote social order and progress (the Brazilian National Flag is an example). The use of law to force social change to facilitate capital accumulation for elites in society flies in the face of what the takings clause is supposed to stand for. This research examines the connection between economic development and public good. It focuses on takings because takings lie at the intersection between economics, politics, and social relations. Takings are justified by necessity and public good, but the claim isn’t genuine. Takings condone displacement and cause harm. State-authorized condemnation juxtaposes civic duty with social obligation, ownership with license and privilege. The thesis developed here is the state is pushing the law of takings toward the satisfaction of private interests. To that end the public use concept was expanded. Kelo v. City of New London (2005) holds economic development is a public use and in making that fallacious claim the case has ruptured takings law. Public use shouldn’t be about private gain. Property should be creative and is when it facilitates productivity, but it’s destructive if it erodes personal autonomy. The state claims it promotes social good when it reorders uses, but the claim is false. Instead the state achieves an air of legitimacy, offering a sound rationale for acts of displacement and uses law to support the claim it promotes public good. If an individual doesn’t want to part with her property she shouldn’t be forced to do so. Taking is use of state power to accomplish ends that can’t otherwise be achieved. Taking is a lawful means to displace to benefit private interests. The proof of this is in the pudding of the transformation of law between Berman v. Parker (1954) and Kelo v. City of New London (2005). Berman (1954) required blight. Kelo v. City of New London (2005) eliminated that requirement. This thesis explains how law and state are captured by private interests.

Excerpt: TAX INCREMENT FINANCING (TIF) IS A DEVELOPMENT TOOL1 used in conditions of scarcity to facilitate growth.2 TIF is a logically justifiable way for cities to raise capital to pay for improvements 3 and a tool used by public officials and private developers to popularly claim that proposed new growth will fund itself and not draw from other vital resources. 4 Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) are an innovative tool for stimulating growth and investment in a local community. 5 They are legally enforceable contracts entered into by representatives of community associations and developers that make it possible for a community to receive benefits in return for public subsidies and land use planning support.6 As part of a CBA, a community is typically promised that certain benefits will be conferred by developers in favor of the community, in compensation for the adverse impacts of development.7 CBAs are the product of community leaders engaging in conversations with developers to mitigate the unintended negative consequence of growth.'

Contingency theory indicates there is no one best way to lead, organize, perform or structure an act, entity or task. This aligns well with Niklas Luhmann's (2004) description of autopoietic transformation of law connecting land use with commercial development. Contingency theory helps planners confront problems with an open mind, appreciating the fluidity of conditions and helping them to better tailor response to crisis. This is necessary for adaptation to variation in conditions. The problem of underperformance of economic resources is when disutility poses an obstacle to development (slowing productivity). Condemnation expropriation offers a solution of primitive accumulation stimulation. This article examines public use in the context of social need and incompatible priorities competing for limited resources. Eminent Domain law is recently being transformed in radical ways. While it has always been about state-sponsored and legally sanctioned expropriation, private purpose is ascending in dominance. Constructing bridges, canals, highways, ports, railways and other infrastructure sometimes requires forced dispossession. The unintended consequence of this is damage to personal autonomy. Since the 1980s corporate and private interests have increasingly asserted themselves in a privatized interpretation of Eminent Domain. This produces significant harm. This article examines the proposed Keystone Pipeline Expansion Project in the context of privatization and increasingly broad applications of Eminent Domain as an aspect of "dispossession by expropriation" (Araghi, 2000). The negative experience of expropriation threatens the viability of Keystone since the analysis turns on "public use" and reveals that hiding at the core of proposed energy independence and consumer gain is a "public purpose pretext" of profit-seeking cloaked in the language of "public use." The solution to this problematic is to admit "pretext" is poised against social welfare. This understanding frees decision makers to focus on the practical aspect of projects and to genuinely determine whether the community will benefit. Careful analysis of economic development takings cases - Berman (1954), Midkiff (1984) and Kelo (2005), (FN1) reveals Keystone's "public purpose" is arguably a disqualifying "pretext." Keywords condemnation, dispossession, eminent domain, expropriation, neoliberalism, privatization, public use

Excerpt: THIS PAPER ARGUES THAT THE KEYSTONE PROPOSED PIPELINE EXPANSION 1 can be permanently derailed or unearthed by asking "Where's the public purpose?" In this paper, Keystone is examined in the context of Kelo v. City of New London,2 which holds that economic development is a sufficient public purpose to justify condemnation. The Keystone Pipeline Project, like the Pfizer project in Kelo, concerns conflict between individual autonomy and commercial development. Despite setbacks due to criticism with respect to environmental risks, the Keystone project continues to make steady progress forward.' Landowners may agree to have a pipeline laid across or buried under their property, or have pieces of their property taken from them, but following Kelo, landowner assent is not necessary. Kelo authorizes the taking of land (with just compensation) for the purpose of economic development, but it also observes that pretext invalidates the legitimacy of a claim to satisfy the public use requirement.