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Full-Text Articles in Law

Of Equal Wrongs And Half Rights, Gideon Parchomovsky, Peter Siegelman, Steven Thel Jun 2007

Of Equal Wrongs And Half Rights, Gideon Parchomovsky, Peter Siegelman, Steven Thel

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With a tiny handful of exceptions, common law jurisprudence is predicated on a “winner-take-all” principle: the plaintiff either gets the entire entitlement at issue or collects nothing at all. Cases that split an entitlement between the two parties are exceedingly rare. While there may be sound reasons for this all-or-nothing rule, we argue in this Article that the law should prefer equal division of an entitlement in a limited but important set of property, tort and contracts cases. The common element in such cases is a windfall, a gain or loss that occurs despite the fact that no ex ante …


The Effect Of Joint And Several Liability Under Superfund On Brownfields, Howard F. Chang, Hilary A. Sigman May 2007

The Effect Of Joint And Several Liability Under Superfund On Brownfields, Howard F. Chang, Hilary A. Sigman

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In response to claims that the threat of environmental liability under the Superfund law deters the acquisition of potentially contaminated sites (or "brownfields") for redevelopment, the federal government has adopted programs to protect purchasers from liability. This protection may be unwarranted, however, if sellers can simply adjust property prices downward to compensate buyers for this liability. We present a model of joint and several liability under Superfund that allows us to distinguish four different reasons that this liability may discourage the purchase of brownfields. The previous literature has overlooked the effects that we identify, which all arise because a sale …


From Reparation To Restoration: Moving Beyond Restoring Property Rights To Restoring Political And Economic Visibility, Bernadette Atuahene Mar 2007

From Reparation To Restoration: Moving Beyond Restoring Property Rights To Restoring Political And Economic Visibility, Bernadette Atuahene

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Abstract: How does a democratic state legitimize strong property rights when property arrangements are widely perceived to be defined by past theft? The answer, I argue, is through restorative justice measures that redistribute wealth based on past dispossession. This answer, however, leads to two more complex questions: Who gets priority in the restorative process given limited resources and how should the process unfold? The concise answers to these two ancillary questions are: First, instances of what I call property-induced invisibility should be prioritized as a baseline for achieving legitimacy. When property is confiscated in this manner people are removed from …


Taking Compensation Private, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky Feb 2007

Taking Compensation Private, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky

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In light of the expansive interpretation of the ""public use"" requirement, the payment of ""just compensation"" remains the only meaningful limit on the government's eminent domain power and, correspondingly, the only safeguard of private property owners' rights against abusive takings. Yet, the current compensation regime is suboptimal. While both efficiency and fairness require paying full compensation for seizures by eminent domain, current law limits the compensation to market value. Despite the virtual consensus about the inadequacy of market compensation, courts adhere to it for a purely practical reason: there is no way to measure the true subjective value of property …