Law Commons^™

Property And The Right To Enter, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

On June 23, 2021, the Supreme Court decided Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, holding that laws that authorize entry to land are takings without regard to duration, impact, or the public interest. The decision runs roughshod over precedent, but it does something more. It undermines the important place of rights to enter in preserving the virtues of property itself. This Article examines rights to enter as a matter of theory, tradition, and constitutional law, arguing that the law has always recognized their essential role. Throughout history, moreover, expansions of legal exclusion have often reflected unjust domination antithetical to property norms. …

The Tulsa Race Massacre Of 1921: A Lesson In The Law Of Trespass, Kara W. Swanson

Connecticut Law Review

The Connecticut Law Review Symposium poses the question: “History and the Tulsa Race Massacre: What’s the Law Got to Do With It?” In one sense, the answer to the question is easy. Since 1921, Black Tulsans have been looking to law and lawyers to address the harms inflicted during the Tulsa Race Massacre, albeit with little success. I was asked to consider, however, the startling lack of recognition of the Massacre—that is, the seemingly impossible feat of forgetting the racially motivated wholesale destruction of a community. In this Essay, I focus on one space of non-recognition, law schools, and on …

Race To Property: Racial Distortions Of Property Law, 1634 To Today, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

Race shaped property law for everyone in the United States, and we are all the poorer for it. This transformation began in the colonial era, when demands for Indian land annexation and a slave-based economy created new legal innovations in recording, foreclosure, and commodification of property. It continued in the antebellum era, when these same processes elevated nationalized property transactions over other rights; and gained new tactics after the end of slavery through the early twentieth century, when the pursuit of racial hierarchy expanded private owners' rights to exclude and tied occupation of physical space to status. The influence of …

Eliding Original Understanding In Cedar Point Nursery V. Hassid, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

Cedar Point Nursey v. Hassid is a triumph of the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. In holding that temporary entries to land are takings without regard to duration, impact, or the public interest, the Court fulfilled the decades-long ambitions of anti-regulatory advocates of private property. Progressive and conservative scholars agree that the decision runs roughshod over precedent. This essay focuses on a less obvious aspect of Cedar Point: its flagrant departure from original understanding. American law at the time of the founding recognized a robust right to enter private property. Trespass law did not even reach entries unless they …

Reading The Illegible: Can Law Understand Graffiti?, Katya Assaf-Zakharov, Tim Schnetgoke

Connecticut Law Review

This essay focuses on graffiti—the practice of illegal writing and painting on trains, walls, bridges, and other publicly visible surfaces.

Social responses to graffiti are highly ambivalent. On the one hand, media often picture graffiti painters as “vandals” and “hooligans.” Local authorities define graffiti as an “epidemic” and declare “wars on graffiti.” On the other hand, graffiti is recognized as a valuable form of art, exhibited in mainstream museums sold for high prices. Reflecting the ambivalent social attitude, the legal treatment of graffiti is highly uneven, punishing some graffiti writers for vandalism while granting copyright protection to others.

Scholars have …

The Illusion Of Fiscal Illusion In Regulatory Takings, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

The main economic justification for compensating owners for losses from land use restrictions is based on a surprising mistake. Compensation is said to make governments internalize the costs of their actions and therefore enact more efficient regulations. Without compensation, the argument goes, governments operate under a fiscal illusion because, from their perspective, their actions are costless. The problem is that this argument makes no sense as a description of the actual costs to governments. Taxation is the main way governments get revenue, and most taxes depend on the value of property and its permissible uses. If a government restricts land …

Building- Related Renewable Energy And The Case Of 360 State Street, Sara Bronin

Faculty Articles and Papers

This Article argues that a well-conceived policy approach to building-related renewable energy (“BRRE”) — that is, renewable energy incorporated into inhabited structures and used by those structures’ occupants — could transform the way we produce and consume energy by maximizing efficiency while simultaneously minimizing energy sprawl. The vast majority of Americans favor renewable energy, at least in concept. Yet private property owners still face significant obstacles in trying to incorporate renewable energy into their projects. This Article analyzes barriers faced by the project team for 360 State Street, an award-winning, mixed-use LEED® Platinum building in downtown New Haven, Connecticut. Among …

Solar Rights For Texas Property Owners, Sara Bronin

Faculty Articles and Papers

In response to Jamie France's note, "A Proposed Solar Access Law for the State of Texas," Professor Bronin urges future commentators to focus on three additional areas of inquiry related to proposed solar rights regimes. Bronin argues that such proposals would be strengthened by discussion of potential legal challenges to the proposals, related political issues, and renewable energy microgrids.Ms. France’s proposal for the State of Texas includes the elimination of preexisting private property restrictions that negatively affect solar access. Bronin argues that this proposal would be strengthened by a discussion of potential challenges under federal and state takings clauses. Additionally, …

What Owners Want And Governments Do - Evidence From The Oregon Experiment, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

In 2004, Oregonians decisively approved Ballot Measure 37. The measure answered the calls of critics of contemporary takings jurisprudence by requiring either compensation for losses caused by land use restrictions imposed after acquisition of the property or waivers of the restrictions. Three years later, voters acted to repeal most of Measure 37 by an even greater margin. Together the birth, brief life, and rapid demise of Measure 37 comprise an unusual natural experiment in property law. The results of this experiment go to the heart of debates about regulatory takings in property law and policy. First, the Oregon experience resulted …

It's Not About The Fox: The Untold History Of Pierson V. Post, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

For generations, Pierson v. Post, the famous fox case, has introduced students to the study of property law. Two hundred years after the case was decided, this Article examines the history of the case to show both how it fits into the American ideology of property, and how the facts behind the dispute challenge that ideology. Pierson is a canonical case because it replicates a central myth of American property law, that we start with a world in which no one has rights to anything and the fundamental problem is how best to convert it to absolute individual ownership. The …

What Is Property's Fourth Estate - Cultural Property And The Fiduciary Ideal, Steven Wilf

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Comment On Property And Divorce, A, Carol Weisbrod

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.