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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Prudential Take On A Prudential Takings Doctrine, Katherine Mims Crocker
A Prudential Take On A Prudential Takings Doctrine, Katherine Mims Crocker
Michigan Law Review Online
The Supreme Court is set to decide a case requesting reconsideration of a doctrine that has long bedeviled constitutional litigants and commentators. The case is Knick v. Township of Scott, and the doctrine is the “ripeness” rule from Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank that plaintiffs seeking to raise takings claims under the Fifth Amendment must pursue state-created remedies first—the so-called “compensation prong” (as distinguished from a separate “takings prong”). This Essay argues that to put the compensation prong in the best light possible, the Court should view the requirement as a “prudential” rule rather than (as it …
Emergency Takings, Brian Angelo Lee
Emergency Takings, Brian Angelo Lee
Michigan Law Review
Takings law has long contained a puzzle. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the government to pay “just compensation” to owners of private property that the government “takes.” In ordinary circumstances, this requirement applies equally whether the property is confiscated or destroyed, and it also applies to property confiscated in emergencies. Remarkably, however, courts have repeatedly held that if the government destroys property to address an emergency, then a “necessity exception” relieves the government of any obligation to compensate the owner of the property that was sacrificed for the public good. Although the roots of this startling principle …
Passive Takings: The State's Affirmative Duty To Protect Property, Christopher Serkin
Passive Takings: The State's Affirmative Duty To Protect Property, Christopher Serkin
Michigan Law Review
The purpose of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause is to protect property owners from the most significant costs of legal transitions. Paradigmatically, a regulatory taking involves a government action that interferes with expectations about the content of property rights. Legal change has therefore always been central to regulatory takings claims. This Article argues that it does not need to be and that governments can violate the Takings Clause by failing to act in the face of a changing world. This argument represents much more than a minor refinement of takings law because recognizing governmental liability for failing to act means …
Judicial Takings: Musings On Stop The Beach, James E. Krier
Judicial Takings: Musings On Stop The Beach, James E. Krier
Articles
Judicial takings weren’t much talked about until a few years ago, when the Stop the Beach case made them suddenly salient. The case arose from a Florida statute, enacted in 1961, that authorizes public restoration of eroded beaches by adding sand to widen them seaward. Under the statute, the state has title to any new dry land resulting from restored beaches, meaning that waterfront owners whose land had previously extended to the mean high-tide line end up with public beaches between their land and the water. This, the owners claimed, resulted in a taking of their property, more particularly their …
The Constitutionality Of Using Eminent Domain To Condemn Underwater Mortgage Loans, Katharine Roller
The Constitutionality Of Using Eminent Domain To Condemn Underwater Mortgage Loans, Katharine Roller
Michigan Law Review
One of the most visible and devastating components of the financial crisis that began in 2007 and 2008 has been a nationwide foreclosure crisis. In the wake of ultimately ineffective attempts at federal policy intervention to address the foreclosure crisis, a private firm has proposed that counties and municipalities use their power of eminent domain to seize “underwater” mortgage loans—-mortgage loans in which the debt exceeds the value of the underlying property—-from the private securitization trusts that currently hold them. Having condemned the mortgage loans, the counties and municipalities would reduce the debt to a level below the value of …
Eminent Domain For The Seizure Of Underwater Mortgages, Sarah Thompson
Eminent Domain For The Seizure Of Underwater Mortgages, Sarah Thompson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat
Like many cities in the United States, Richmond, California suffered greatly from the recent mortgage crisis. The foreclosure crisis hit Richmond hard in 2009, when more than 2,000 homes in Richmond went into foreclosure. This figure is especially shocking given that there were 18,659 owner-occupied housing units in the city at that time. In 2012, the city saw an additional 914 foreclosures and a foreclosure rate of thirty out of 1,000 homes (well above the national average of thirteen of every 1,000 homes). Today, it is reported that nearly forty-six percent of homes in Richmond are “underwater,” meaning that what …
Supreme Neglect Of Text And History, William Michael Treanor
Supreme Neglect Of Text And History, William Michael Treanor
Michigan Law Review
Since his classic book Takings appeared in 1985, Richard Epstein's ideas have profoundly shaped debate about the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause to a degree that no other scholar can even begin to approach. His broad, original, and stunningly ambitious reading of the clause has powerfully influenced thinking in academia, in the judiciary, and in the political arena. The firestorm of controvery that followed the Supreme Court's recent decision in Kelo - in which the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a municipal urban renewal plan that displaced long-time homeowners and conveyed their land to developers - is in critical part …
The Neglected Political Economy Of Eminent Domain, Nicole Stelle Garnett
The Neglected Political Economy Of Eminent Domain, Nicole Stelle Garnett
Michigan Law Review
This Article challenges a foundational assumption about eminent domain- namely, that owners are systematically undercompensated because they receive only fair market value for their property. In fact, scholars may have overstated the undercompensation problem because they have focused on the compensation required by the Constitution, rather than on the actual mechanics of the eminent domain process. The Article examines three ways that "Takers" (i.e., nonjudicial actors in the eminent domain process) minimize undercompensation. First, Takers may avoid taking high subjective value properties. (By way of illustration, Professor Garnett discusses evidence that Chicago's freeways were rerouted in the 1950s to avoid …
Public Ruses, James E. Krier, Christopher Serkin
Public Ruses, James E. Krier, Christopher Serkin
Articles
The public use requirement of eminent domain law may be working its way back into the United States Constitution. To be sure, the words "public use" appear in the document-and in many state constitutions as well, but the federal provision applies to the states in any event-as one of the Fifth Amendment's limitations on the government's inherent power to take private property against the will of its owners. (The other limitation is that "just compensation" must be paid, of which more later.) Any taking of private property, the text suggests, must be for public use. Those words, however, have amounted …
Just Compensation, Incentives, And Social Meanings, Hanoch Dagan
Just Compensation, Incentives, And Social Meanings, Hanoch Dagan
Michigan Law Review
In Takings and Distributive Justice, I proposed a progressive interpretation of the Compensation Clause. In his response, published in this issue, Professor Lunney challenges the plausibility and the desirability of my interpretation and proposes an alternative. This Essay compares our approaches. It concludes that Professor Lunney's careful examination of the public choice analysis of takings does refine my theory. Contrary to Professor Lunney's claims, however, these refinements reinforce - rather than undermine - the viability of a progressive takings doctrine. Parts I and II set the stage by summarizing the principal claims made, respectively, in my original Article and in …
Takings, Efficiency, And Distributive Justice: A Response To Professor Dagan, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.
Takings, Efficiency, And Distributive Justice: A Response To Professor Dagan, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.
Michigan Law Review
In A Critical Reexamination of the Takings Jurisprudence, I addressed an efficiency problem that arises when the government attempts to change property rights in a manner that burdens a very few for the benefit of the very many. Specifically, in the absence of compensation, the collective action advantage of the few in organizing to oppose the proposed measure will often give them a decided edge against the many. As a result of that advantage, the few will too often be able to persuade the legislature not to act, even when an objective evaluation of the proposal's costs and benefits would …
Who "Owns" A Cultural Treasure?, Jason Y. Hall
Who "Owns" A Cultural Treasure?, Jason Y. Hall
Michigan Law Review
Because of the thoughtfulness of its arguments, the range and depth of its presentation of specific cases, and the fairness with which it reveals, thinks through, and allows some validity to opposing points of view, Playing Darts with a Rembrandt is a valuable contribution to understanding which parties have, and should have, rights in key objects that comprise our collective heritage. That I am not persuaded by some of the specific arguments in the book in no way reduces my admiration for what it accomplishes.
Casting Light On Cultural Property, John J. Costonis
Casting Light On Cultural Property, John J. Costonis
Michigan Law Review
Theorists of private property invite comparison to theorists of light. For centuries, the latter have debated whether light is best understood as a wave or as a photon. The rivalry has been intense because each hypothesis explains some characteristics of light very well, but others very poorly. Wave theory outstrips photon theory in explaining such phenomena as light's frequencies and diffraction patterns. But photon theory, which reduces light to a succession of particles, more effectively explains such subatomic phenomena as changes in an atom's orbital shell produced by the interaction of photons and electrons. Property theorists too can be viewed …
Uncoupling The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Uncoupling The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Articles
The law of takings couples together matters that should be treated independently. The conventional view, shared by courts and commentators alike, has been that any takings case can be resolved in one of two ways: either there is a taking and compensation is due, or there is no taking and no compensation is due. These results are fine as long as one holding or the other serves the two central concerns of the Takings Clause - eficiency and justice. But a problem arises when the two purposes behind the law of takings come into cordhct, as they readily might. It …
Making Something Out Of Nothing: The Law Of Takings And Phillips V. Washington Legal Foundation, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Making Something Out Of Nothing: The Law Of Takings And Phillips V. Washington Legal Foundation, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Articles
Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation held that interest on principal amounts deposited into IOLTA accounts is the property of the various clients who handed over the money but expressed no view as to whether the Texas IOLTA program worked a taking, or, if it did, whether any compensation was due. The debates among the justices about the meaning of private property, argued in terms of contextual and conceptual severance, are unlikely to prove fruitful. We elaborate a better approach in terms of the underlying purposes of just compensation. We conclude that efficiency and justice are best served by uncoupling matters …
The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller
The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller
Articles
If your house and fields are worth more separately, divide them; if you want to leave a ring to your child now and grandchild later, split the ownership in a trust. The American law of property encourages owners to subdivide resources freely. Hidden within the law, however, is a boundary principle that limits the right to subdivide private property into wasteful fragments. While people often create wealth when they break up and recombine property in novel ways, owners may make mistakes, or their self-interest may clash with social welfare. Property law responds with diverse doctrines that prevent and abolish excessive …
Deterrence And Distribution In The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Deterrence And Distribution In The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Articles
Supreme Court decisions over the last three-quarters of a century have turned the words of the Takings Clause into a secret code that only a momentary majority of the Court is able to understand. The Justices faithfully moor their opinions to the particular terms of the Fifth Amendment, but only by stretching the text beyond recognition. A better approach is to consider the purposes of the Takings Clause, efficiency and justice, and go anew from there. Such a method reveals that in some cases there are good reasons to require payment by the government when it regulates property, but not …
Ultra Vires Takings, Matthew D. Zinn
Ultra Vires Takings, Matthew D. Zinn
Michigan Law Review
When does legislative or administrative regulatory action "go[] too far" and effectively amount to an .appropriation of private property for which the Fifth Amendment requires just compensation? This question has turned out to be one of the thorniest in American constitutional law. The Supreme Court has identified several circumstances in which one can expect to find a regulatory taking, but its numerous pronouncements on the subject give no clear rule to distinguish compensable takings from noncompensable interference with property rights. Notwithstanding its volume, the commentary on the Takings Clause by and large addresses only proper governmental action that rises to …
A Critical Reexamination Of The Takings Jurisprudence, Glynn S. Lunney Jr
A Critical Reexamination Of The Takings Jurisprudence, Glynn S. Lunney Jr
Michigan Law Review
To provide some insight into the nature of these disagreements, and to suggest a possible solution to the compensation issue, this article undertakes a critical reexamination of the takings jurisprudence. It focuses on the two bases which the modem Court has articulated as support for its resolution of the compensation issue: (1) the articulated purpose of using the just compensation requirement "to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens"; and (2) the early case law. Beginning with the Court's first struggles with the compensation issue in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, this article traces …
Noise And The Law, George A. Spater
Noise And The Law, George A. Spater
Michigan Law Review
For practical purposes the discussion of the law of noise can be considered in two parts: first, the rights of a complainant against a private person and second, the rights of a complainant against the government or an agency acting by government authority.
Constitutional Law - Eminent Domain - Extension Of Fifth Amendment "Taking" To Include Destruction Of Lien Right By The Doctrine Of Immunity Of Government Property From Attachment, Henry J. Price
Michigan Law Review
Upon default of the contracting shipbuilder, the United States acquired title to certain materials in accordance with a contract provision. Petitioners, who had previously acquired materialmen's liens on these materials, claimed that assertion of the doctrine of immunity of government property from attachment resulted in a "taking" of their liens in violation of the fifth amendment. This was rejected by the Court of Claims. On certiorari to the United States Supreme Court, held, reversed, three Justices dissenting. Since the builder had title at the time the materials were furnished, the property was not a "public work" and thus the …
Constitutional Law - Validity Of Rent Provisions Of Emergency Price Control Act, George T. Schilling
Constitutional Law - Validity Of Rent Provisions Of Emergency Price Control Act, George T. Schilling
Michigan Law Review
The administrator of the Office of Price Administration brought an action in a federal district court to enjoin defendant from violating the rent provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, and orders and regulations issued pursuant thereto. Defendant, by way of counterclaim, challenged the constitutionality of the act and Regulation No. 10 and sought an in junction restraining plaintiff from enforcing against her the provisions of the act, from interfering with the use and occupancy of her premises and her right to invoke the jurisdiction of the state courts, and requesting the suspension of the penal provisions of …
Eminent Domain - Public Housing And Slum Clearance As A "Public Use", Wayne E. Babler
Eminent Domain - Public Housing And Slum Clearance As A "Public Use", Wayne E. Babler
Michigan Law Review
The recent legislation providing for housing and slum clearance raises the interesting and practical problem of whether a taking of land for such housing and slum clearance purposes by means of an eminent domain proceeding is condemnation for a "public use," within the meaning of that term in eminent domain proceedings. Such a taking was held to be for a public use in the recent case of Spahn v. Stewart.
Bankruptcy - Corporate Reorganization - Plan - Adequate Protection Of Claims - Due Process, Erwin S. Simon
Bankruptcy - Corporate Reorganization - Plan - Adequate Protection Of Claims - Due Process, Erwin S. Simon
Michigan Law Review
In proceedings for reorganization under Section 77B of the Bankruptcy Act, the debtor held real property valued at $245,025, while outstanding against the property there were first mortgage bonds of $445,000, second mortgage notes for $40,250 and a third mortgage note for $27,000. The court confirmed a plan which made no provision for junior lienors or stockholders, and to which they had not given their consent. On certiorari, granted by the Supreme Court, it was held, that since there was no equity in the property above the first mortgage, the claims of the junior lienors and stockholders had no …