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Full-Text Articles in Law
Distributive Justice And Donative Intent, Alexander Boni-Saenz
Distributive Justice And Donative Intent, Alexander Boni-Saenz
All Faculty Scholarship
The inheritance system is beset by formalism. Probate courts reject wills on technicalities and refuse to correct obvious drafting mistakes by testators. These doctrines lead to donative errors, or outcomes that are not in line with the decedent’s donative intent. While scholars and reformers have critiqued the intent-defeating effects of formalism in the past, none have examined the resulting distribution of donative errors and connected it to broader social and economic inequalities. Drawing on egalitarian theories of distributive justice, this Article develops a novel critique of formalism in the inheritance law context. The central normative claim is that formalistic wills …
Introduction: Toward Voice And Reflexivity, Olivier De Schutter, Katharina Pistor
Introduction: Toward Voice And Reflexivity, Olivier De Schutter, Katharina Pistor
Faculty Scholarship
In their introductory chapter, De Schutter and Pistor argue that in light of increasing absolute and relative scarcity of land and fresh water there is urgent need to improve the governance of these and other essential resources. Emphasizing “essentiality” shifts the debate from allocative efficiency to normative concerns of equity and dignity. Essential resources are indispensable for survival and/or for meaningful participation in a given community. Their allocation therefore cannot be left to the pricing mechanism alone. It requires new parameters for governance. The authors propose Voice and Reflexivity as the key parameters of such a regime. Voice is …
A Few Questions About The Social-Obligation Norm, Jedediah S. Purdy
A Few Questions About The Social-Obligation Norm, Jedediah S. Purdy
Faculty Scholarship
I applaud Gregory Alexander for proposing an innovative view of property, one focused on the obligations of ownership. His project locates what I think of as the liberal aim of personal freedom (meaning both formal autonomy and real opportunity) within a social context of distributive choices and conceptions of mutual obligation. That is, he is asking what counts as a free society, and he is putting property regimes at the center of the answer. I want to set out some questions about where his project goes from here.
Locational Justice: Race, Class, And The Grassroots Protest Of Property Takings, Judith E. Koons
Locational Justice: Race, Class, And The Grassroots Protest Of Property Takings, Judith E. Koons
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Casting Lots: The Illusion Of Justice And Accountability In Property Allocation, Carol N. Brown
Casting Lots: The Illusion Of Justice And Accountability In Property Allocation, Carol N. Brown
Law Faculty Publications
When does resorting to random selection by casting lots produce a just distribution or allocation of property? Some argue generally in support of casting lots, asserting that it is a viable substitute for equal distribution of property. Others argue against casting lots, contending that it undermines distributive justice. This article considers instances of casting lots from the nineteenth century to the present and explains why the latter view is the better view.
The Antelope is one of the earliest United States Supreme Court cases addressing distribution of property by casting lots. It chronicles a dispute over the allocation of captured …