Outside Legal Counsel PLC (Atty Philip L. Ellison)

Can the government enter your property without a warrant just because it’s “an inspection”? My answer: No. We’ve proven it. olcplc.com/s/cp5wY The Constitution draws the line. If it’s happening to you, I want to hear about it. NoWarrant.com #FourthAmendment

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Olivier v. City of Brandon makes clear that people can go to court to stop unconstitutional laws from being enforced in the future—even if they were already convicted under those laws in the past. Governments have long tried to end court challenges by misconstruing the “Heck bar.” For the kinds of cases that OLC handles, this decision greatly strengthens the ability to bring forward-looking lawsuits aimed at fixing bad policies instead of just undoing past harm. It allows lawyers to focus on stopping future enforcement of unconstitutional laws—protecting not just one client, but everyone affected by the same rule. Practically, that means more opportunities to challenge local ordinances, policing practices, or government restrictions before they cause repeated harm, which raises both the impact and visibility of this type of legal work.

This Michigan Case Could Change Property Rights Across America x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of the Pung family, attorney Phil Ellison says it could stop local governments from taking far more property than people actually owe in back taxes.

The Pungs lost their family home after a tax assessor reported it delinquent over a $2,200 tax debt and sold it for half its value. Last week, @olcplc argued before the Supreme Court that the Pung family deserves just compensation for the property taken by the government.

The Supreme Court will hear a case involving a Michigan man whose home was seized by the government to cover a wrongly assessed tax debt. The Court should rule against an excessive fine and home seizure. on.wsj.com/4aNH5lj

MI Court of Appeals panel will not block release of late John Tanton's papers held by University of Michigan. Virginia-based immigration lawyer sought papers via FOIA in 11 boxes that Tanton, an anti-immigration proponent, sealed until April 2035

⚖️ A Fifth Amendment case at the U.S. Supreme Court 🏛️ Pung v. Isabella County We are representing the Michigan property owner challenging a system the Supreme Court has suggested the Constitution does not allow. The lower courts and the local governments weren’t listening. When the government takes property to satisfy a debt, it may collect what is owed — but no more than the fair market value of that debt. 🏠📉 Taking property worth more than the debt is not collection. It is a taking. 📌 This wasn’t right. This isn’t politics. 🇺🇸 It’s the Fifth Amendment. 🔒 No constitutional shortcuts.

⚖️ Transparency Wins in Michigan ⚖️ Today, the Michigan Court of Appeals unanimously ordered the University of Michigan to disclose the “Tanton Papers” under the Freedom of Information Act. olcplc.com/public/media?1… The Court rejected nearly all the arguments the University raised to keep the records secret—including donor restrictions, privacy claims, library-law arguments, and claims of constitutional autonomy. The message was simple and important: public institutions cannot contract around FOIA. This case has been litigated for nearly a decade and went all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court before returning to the Court of Appeals. Today’s decision confirms what FOIA was designed to protect: the public’s right to know. Accountability matters. Open government matters.

Michigan’s Tax Foreclosure System Is Still Stripping Home Equity realtor.com/advice/finance…

@ZugIslander No seat in the gallery—but I’ll be at the podium.

Denied a ticket for the Pung v. Isabella County oral arguments at the US Supreme Court. Michigan tax foreclosure system goes to the show, but I won’t have a seat. Bummer.

After 9 years of fighting his own township, a Michigan farmer just won the right to keep his pigs and protect his way of life. A local government shouldn’t be able to bully a family farm into extinction. 🔥 This is about property rights, farming freedom, and the law actually working for ordinary people. 9 years. One victory. Real justice. Crispy Bacon. 🐖 🔁 Share if you stand with farmers and liberty.

The government took a man’s home over a small tax debt (not actually owed). Then kept everything. That’s the constitutional issue in Pung v. Isabella County, now before the U.S. Supreme Court. This first video explains the legal question plainly: Can the government take more than it’s owed and keep it? I’m attorney Philip Ellison. I represent property owners. And the Constitution still matters. Watch. Share. Follow for the series. Oral argument in Washington DC on Feb 25, 2026. #Pung #SCOTUS #FifthAmendment #propertyrights

We are challenging part of Michigan’s newborn screening program—and parents deserve to know why. Newborn screening saves lives. No one disputes that testing infants for serious conditions is important and often critical. But testing is not the same thing as indefinite retention. In Michigan, blood samples taken from newborn children were kept by the State after the screening purpose was complete, along with the sensitive medical and genetic data those samples contain—without meaningful parental consent. That is the issue. Our case challenges whether the State of Michigan can treat children’s biological samples and medical data as government property by default, rather than as private information belonging to the child and family. Parents—not the government—are supposed to decide what happens to their child’s most sensitive medical information once the medical need has passed. This case asks a simple question: Does the government have the right to keep children’s medical data forever without asking? ▶️ Watch the video: m.youtube.com/watch?v=nG3diy… Protecting kids includes protecting their privacy.

Today we filed a Supreme Court petition about children’s medical data privacy. Every parent understands this instinctively: your child’s medical information is private. It is sensitive. And it deserves protection. In this case, the Michigan public health officials collected blood samples from newborn children for required screening. That part isn’t the controversy. The problem comes after the test is done. They then kept the genetic and medical data they extracted, without parental consent, even after the screening purpose was complete. Not cool. That raises a fundamental constitutional question: Can the government permanently retain a child’s biological and genetic information when the parents never agreed to that use? Our petition to the Supreme Court of the United States asks the Court to address that question under the #FourthAmendment, which exists to protect privacy and bodily integrity—especially where the individual affected cannot consent for themselves. The Constitution protects children too.

As Philip L. Ellison, principal attorney on the case, put it, “When an agency says ‘we grant your request’ but then produces nothing for half a year or more, that’s not transparency.”