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Property As A Management Institution, Lynda L. Butler

Brooklyn Law Review

The institution of property serves an important management function for society, guiding the use of resources among its members by delegating to the owner the power to decde how and when to use a resource. Under the dominant American approach, this delegation involves recognizing broad decision-making powers in the individual property owner. Grounded in an exclusion-based view of property, the dominant approach recognizes each property owner as a gatekeeper, with important in rem rights that bind all others—even those not in a direct relationship with the owner. Over time, courts and other lawmakers have developed doctrines and rules of law …