Law Commons^™

Improvement Doctrines, Deepa Varadarajan

Deepa Varadarajan

When one party makes significant but unauthorized improvements to another's land, chattels or informational assets, should the "improving" nature of the act alter the liability or remedy calculus? Traditional property law has long had to resolve conflicts that arise when one person improves another's land or chattels without permission -- for example, if A cuts down B's trees and fashions a chair, or A erects a building on B's land. Ordinarily, A would be liable and subject to an injunction because B has a strict right to exclude that is protected by a property rule. But various doctrines in traditional …

Property Rules And Liability Rules: The Cathedral In Another Light, James Krier, Stewart Schwab

Stewart J Schwab

Ronald Coase's essay on "The Problem of Social Cost" introduced the world to transaction costs, and the introduction laid the foundation for an ongoing cottage industry in law and economics. And of all the law-and-economics scholarship built on Coase's insights, perhaps the most widely known and influential contribution has been Calabresi and Melamed's discussion of what they called "property rules" and "liability rules."' Those rules and the methodology behind them are our subjects here. We have a number of objectives, the most basic of which is to provide a much needed primer for those students, scholars, and lawyers who are …

The Cathedral' At Twenty-Five: Citations And Impressions, James Krier, Stewart Schwab

Stewart J Schwab

It was twenty-five years ago that Guido Calabresi and Douglas Melamed published their article on property rules, liability rules, and inalienability' Calabresi, then a law professor, later a dean, is now a federal judge. Melamed, formerly a student of Calabresi's, is now a seasoned Washington attorney. Their article-which, thanks to its subtitle, we shall call The Cathedral-has had a remarkable influence on our own thinking, as we tried to show in a recent paper2 This is not the place to rehash what we said then, but a summary might be in order. First, we demonstrated that the conventional wisdom about …

A Layperson's Guide To Fair Housing Law (2014), F. Caruso, Michael Seng, Alison Bethel

F. Willis Caruso

Housing discrimination can take many forms. Laws have been passed at the federal, state, and local levels to prohibit housing discrimination, and attorneys and many fair housing groups are working to eradicate the problem. But the solution to the fair housing problem will not come solely through the work of attorneys and fair housing agencies and organizations; it will also have to come from an educated public that is unwilling to tolerate the cost of housing discrimination. Housing discrimination affects every individual in the United States. Realtors and brokers, bankers and mortgage lenders, insurance companies and developers, real estate buyers …

Ineffective In Any Form: How Confirmation Bias And Distractions Undermine Improved Home-Loan Disclosures, 122 Yale L.J. Online 377 (2013), Debra Stark, Jessica Choplin, Mark Leboeuf

Debra Pogrund Stark

No abstract provided.

Teacher's Manual For Property Law: Cases, Materials, And Problems, Thomas Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

No abstract provided.

A Second Chance For Innovation - Foreign Inspiration For The Revised Uniform Residential Landlord And Tenant Act, Melissa Lonegrass

Melissa T. Lonegrass

No abstract provided.

Acquiring Land Through Eminent Domain: Justifications, Limitations, And Alternatives, Daniel Kelly

Daniel B Kelly

The primary functional justifications for eminent domain involve bargaining problems, including the holdout problem, the bilateral monopoly problem and other transaction costs, as well as the existence of externalities. The holdout problem is particularly noteworthy, and this chapter analyzes three types of holdouts, depending on whether the failure in bargaining is the result of strategic behavior among owners, the presence of a large number of owners or a single owner who is unwilling to sell because of a highly idiosyncratic valuation. Although eminent domain solves any potential bargaining problems by transferring land directly from existing owners to the government, eminent …

Epstein's Property, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

In an era of skepticism about common law traditions and sensitivity to claims of distributive injustice, Richard Epstein has been an unflinching defender of private property rights. He has insisted that property rights are intelligible, and reminded us of their importance to social and economic welfare. In this paper, I shall offer what I believe is a friendly interpretation of Epstein's writings on property, and then pose some internal questions about the approach he has outlined. I begin with a quick summary of his description of property rights in an ideal legal regime.

When Does Some Federal Interest Require A Different Result?: An Essay On The Use And Misuse Of Butner V. United States, Juliet Moringiello

Juliet M Moringiello

Thousands of judges and scholars have relied on the statement in the 1979 Supreme Court opinion in Butner v. United States that “property interests are created and defined by state law...unless some federal interest requires a different result.” Often, they cite to the statement as a policy constraint that elevates state property law over federal bankruptcy law. This Essay, written for the American Bankruptcy Institute – University of Illinois Symposium on Chapter 11 Reform, posits that the Butner rule is not as broadly applicable as commonly believed. To do so, the Essay surveys some notable uses and misuses of the …

Local Home Rule In The Time Of Globalization, Kenneth Stahl

Kenneth Stahl

Cities are increasingly taking the lead in tackling global issues like climate change, financial regulation, economic inequality, and others that the federal and state governments have failed to address. Recent media accounts have accordingly praised cities as the hope of our globally networked future. This optimistic appraisal of cities is, however, undermined by local governments’ cramped legal status. Under the doctrine of home rule, local governments can often only act in matters deemed “local” in nature, and cannot regulate “statewide” issues that may have impacts beyond local borders. As a result, the global issues that local governments are being praised …

Temporary Takings, More Or Less, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Timothy M. Mulvaney