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Full-Text Articles in Law
Reconciling Police Power Prerogatives, Public Trust Interests, And Private Property Rights Along Laurentian Great Lakes Shores, Richard K. Norton, Nancy H. Welsh
Reconciling Police Power Prerogatives, Public Trust Interests, And Private Property Rights Along Laurentian Great Lakes Shores, Richard K. Norton, Nancy H. Welsh
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
The United States has a north coast along its ‘inland seas’—the Laurentian Great Lakes. The country enjoys more than 4,500 miles of Great Lakes coastal shoreline, almost as much as its ocean coastal shorelines combined, excluding Alaska. The Great Lakes states are experiencing continued shorefront development and redevelopment, and there are growing calls to better manage shorelands for enhanced resiliency in the face of global climate change. The problem is that the most pleasant, fragile, and dangerous places are in high demand among coastal property owners, such that coastal development often yields the most tenacious of conflicts between public interests …
Adverse Possession Of Municipal Land: It's Time To Protect This Valuable Asset, Paula R. Latovick
Adverse Possession Of Municipal Land: It's Time To Protect This Valuable Asset, Paula R. Latovick
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The laws of several states regarding adverse possession of municipal land vary widely from providing no protection to granting complete immunity from such loss. Generally, states that permit adverse possession of municipally owned land do so without articulating a rationale for allowing such a loss of a valuable municipal asset. In this Article, Professor Latovick describes why the current state of the law is unsatisfactory. She then considers the public policies raised by the issue of adverse possession of municipal land. Professor Latovick concludes by proposing that states should adopt legislation expressly protecting all municipal land from adverse possession and …
Moving From Colonias To Comunidades: A Proposal For New Mexico To Revisit The Installment Land Contract Debate, Elizabeth M. Provencio
Moving From Colonias To Comunidades: A Proposal For New Mexico To Revisit The Installment Land Contract Debate, Elizabeth M. Provencio
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Communities of Mexican Americans in the Southwest, known as colonias, have provided many low-income buyers with affordable opportunities. Affordability, however, comes at a high price for the colonias residents. Most of the buyers live in colonias pursuant to installment land contracts, devices which allow buyers to spread the purchase price of property over a number of years but leave them without legal title or equity under New Mexico law. The buyers sacrifice their legal rights to "own" small, unimproved lots of land in developments that are often without electricity, gas, a sewage system, and indoor plumbing. The author argues …
Adverse Possession Against The States: The Hornbooks Have It Wrong, Paula R. Latovick
Adverse Possession Against The States: The Hornbooks Have It Wrong, Paula R. Latovick
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The hornbook rule is that adverse possession statutes do not run against land owned by state governments. Yet, in practice, the land of many states is subject to loss by adverse possession. Few states have statutes that simply and explicitly protect all state land from adverse possession. This Article describes the variety of ways in which states protect or fail to protect their land from adverse possession. It concludes with the recommendation that, given increasing development pressures and limited state enforcement budgets, state legislatures should protect completely all state land from adverse possession.
Allocating The Burden Of Proof To Effectuate The Preservation And Federalism Goals Of The Coastal Zone Management Act, Martin J. Lalonde
Allocating The Burden Of Proof To Effectuate The Preservation And Federalism Goals Of The Coastal Zone Management Act, Martin J. Lalonde
Michigan Law Review
Primarily due to policy considerations, this Note argues that courts should allocate to the federal agency proposing an activity that may affect the coastal zone the burden of proving consistency with a state CMP. This allocation effectuates Congress's intent to vest states with primary control to preserve the coastal zone. Part I provides a general background of the Act's consistency requirement for federally conducted activities. Part II examines the various factors that courts traditionally consider when allocating burdens of proof in litigation. Part III evaluates these factors as applied to the consistency issue under the CZMA. Part IV concludes that …
The Law Of The American West: A Critical Bibliography Of The Nonlegal Sources, Charles F. Wilkinson
The Law Of The American West: A Critical Bibliography Of The Nonlegal Sources, Charles F. Wilkinson
Michigan Law Review
This article is an attempt to collect some of the books, fiction as well as nonfiction, that deal with the true sources of the law of the American West. My effort is only to identify readily available works, not the myriad government documents, diaries, doctoral theses, and out-of-print books that afford invaluable depth on individual topics. Nor is there any pretension to complete coverage. Inevitably, there will be omissions when the sweep is as broad as this article's. But I will omit none of my personal favorites, those many books that have enriched my life and allowed me one of …
Farmland And Open Space Preservation In Michigan: An Empirical Analysis, Sandra A. Hoffmann
Farmland And Open Space Preservation In Michigan: An Empirical Analysis, Sandra A. Hoffmann
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Part I of this Note describes the political and economic conditions that gave rise to the farmland and open space preservation enactments. It presents a brief political history of the support for this body of legislation and summarizes the economic arguments raised both for and against these preservation efforts. Part II describes the principal types of state farmland and open space preservation programs enacted during the past thirty years. Finally, Part III presents an empirical analysis of P.A. 116.
City Zoning: The Once And Future Frontier, Michigan Law Review
City Zoning: The Once And Future Frontier, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Review of City Zoning: The Once and Future Frontier by Clifford L. Weaver and Richard F. Babcock
Everything In Its Place: Social Order And Land Use In America, Michigan Law Review
Everything In Its Place: Social Order And Land Use In America, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Everything in its Place: Social Order and Land Use in America by Constance Perin
Reflections On Stare Decisis In Michigan: The Rise And Fall Of The "Rezoning As Administrative Act" Doctrine, Roger A. Cunningham
Reflections On Stare Decisis In Michigan: The Rise And Fall Of The "Rezoning As Administrative Act" Doctrine, Roger A. Cunningham
Michigan Law Review
In an earlier article in this law review, I discussed the new doctrine that in certain municipalities a decision by the local governing body to rezone or not to rezone land should be deemed an "administrative" or "quasi-judicial," rather than a "legislative," act. This doctrine was introduced into Michigan law several years ago in a series of opinions signed by only three justices of the Michigan Supreme Court. The earlier article dealt principally with the merits of the new "rezoning as administrative act" doctrine. The present article discusses troublesome aspects of the Michigan Supreme Court's attitude toward the principle of …
The Inadequacy Of Judicial Remedies In Cases Of Exclusionary Zoning, Michigan Law Review
The Inadequacy Of Judicial Remedies In Cases Of Exclusionary Zoning, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note presents and evaluates the possible judicial responses to cases, like Mount Laurel, that involve challenges to entire zoning ordinances on exclusionary grounds. It argues that pragmatic and legal difficulties militate against any judicial imposition of affirmative relief not tailored to specific tracts of land and suggests that the most effective resolution of the problems confronted by low-income housing advocates lies in comprehensive legislative programs.
Preferential Property Tax Treatment Of Farmland And Open Space Under Michigan Law, Ronald Henry
Preferential Property Tax Treatment Of Farmland And Open Space Under Michigan Law, Ronald Henry
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This note will attempt to explain the new Michigan statute and evaluate the effectiveness of this type of legislation as a means of preserving open space and farmland from conversion to more intensive use.
The Interrelationship Between Excusionary Subdivision Control - A Second Look, Roger A. Cunningham
The Interrelationship Between Excusionary Subdivision Control - A Second Look, Roger A. Cunningham
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The thesis of this article is that the conclusion set out above is both oversimplified and inaccurate. Contrary to the author's contention in his Journal article, there are "viable distinctions between zoning and subdivision control," and consequently the major exclusionary techniques available to suburban communities through "zoning" are simply not available in connection with "subdivision control." Dramatic attempts at racial exclusion through subdivision control are likely to be infrequent. Although subdivision regulations, like zoning ordinances and building codes, require expenditures by land developers which increase the cost of housing and thus tend to exclude the poor, the effect of subdivision …
Interstate Land Sales Regulation: The Case For An Expanded Federal Role, Robert R. Maxwell
Interstate Land Sales Regulation: The Case For An Expanded Federal Role, Robert R. Maxwell
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Public awareness of the need for protection from fraudulent vendors of undeveloped land recurs periodically and has led to brief flurries of legislative and journalistic attention since the Florida land boom of the 1920s. Despite the rush of state and federal legislation enacted in recent years to combat sharp practices in the land development field, the need for stronger regulation has been revealed by testimony at public hearings held by the Office of Interstate Land Sales Registration as well as by numerous news accounts of questionable tactics employed by some land development promoters. The recent actions of the Federal Trade …
Constitutional Law--Equal Protection--Property Ownership Qualifications On The Right To Vote In Special Municipal Elections--Cipriano V. City Of Houma, Michigan Law Review
Constitutional Law--Equal Protection--Property Ownership Qualifications On The Right To Vote In Special Municipal Elections--Cipriano V. City Of Houma, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Plaintiff, a resident of Houma, Louisiana, who owned no real property, brought a class action seeking to prevent the city from issuing utility revenue bonds approved by a vote of the property taxpayers at a special election. He argued that the Louisiana statute restricting the right to vote in such elections to property owners was unconstitutional. Plaintiff relied on Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, in which the Supreme Court declared that Virginia's required payment of poll taxes for voting in general elections was a violation of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. Harper, he claimed, …
Commonwealth Of Puerto Rico V. Rosso: Land Banking And The Expanded Concept Of Public Use, David L. Callies
Commonwealth Of Puerto Rico V. Rosso: Land Banking And The Expanded Concept Of Public Use, David L. Callies
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
As the supply of vacant land on which to expand dwindles, the economic, social and cultural blight attendant upon the rapid but relatively unplanned growth of metropolitan areas increasingly becomes a subject of grave concern throughout the world. The two most common traditional approaches to land use problems are now proving inadequate, given the nature of urban sprawl. The first is zoning, basically an exercise of the police power whereby a governmental body restricts the use of land by appropriate regulation without compensating the owner. The restriction must be for the purpose of promoting the health, morals, safety or welfare …
Public Control Of Land Subdivision In Michigan: Description And Critique, Roger A. Cunningham
Public Control Of Land Subdivision In Michigan: Description And Critique, Roger A. Cunningham
Michigan Law Review
Michigan seems to be unique in having three separate subdivision control statutes. The Plat Act of 1929, like the Subdivision Control Act of 1967 which will soon replace it, is largely mandatory, prescribing standards and procedures required in all cases of land subdivision (as defined in the statute), whether the municipality in which the land is located has a planning commission or not. The Municipal Planning Act, on the other hand, is simply an enabling act, permissive both with respect to establishment of a planning commission and with respect to the exercise by that commission, once established, of the power …
Book Reviews, Edwin C. Goddard, Evans Holbrook, Ralph W. Aigler, Edwin D. Dickinson
Book Reviews, Edwin C. Goddard, Evans Holbrook, Ralph W. Aigler, Edwin D. Dickinson
Michigan Law Review
Books in general, law books in particular, are like people. Most of them are ordinary, some useful, some not, but if they had not appeared they would not have been greatly missed, having appeared they will live their few years and at least seem to be forgotten. A few are so outstanding that they make a strong impress on their time and live on beyond the period of a life. If not great they have great influence and make notable contributions. Among the notable books of our time in the field of property law may be mentioned Jarman on Wills …
Operation And Effect Of Recording, Ralph W. Aigler
Operation And Effect Of Recording, Ralph W. Aigler
Articles
While the operation of the recording acts is not uncommonly said to result in a preference of the earlier recorded instrument on the ground that under the circumstances the later grantee takes "with notice," the true view in the normal case would seem to be that the earlier grantee is preferred because priority in time gives priority in right-and by recording, he has done all that is required to preserve that favored position. Recording does not ordinarily give preference, it merely safeguards priority. Reference is here made to the normal case because it is, of course, true that there are …
Joint Tenancy In Personal Property In Michigan, Ralph W. Aigler
Joint Tenancy In Personal Property In Michigan, Ralph W. Aigler
Articles
In Lober v. Dorgan, 215 Mich. 62, decided July 19, 1921, the court again wrestled with the problem which has troubled the Michigan courts for many years, as to whether the law of the state recognizes any such thing as joint ownership in personal property with the common law incident of survivorship. The facts presented a controversy between the estates of husband and wife, the latter having survived the former. A real estate mortgage had been given to "George W. Bush and Sarah Bush, his wife, of Gobleville, Michigan, as joint tenants, with sole right to the survivor." After the …
Waters And Water Courses - The Effect Of The Desert Land Act Of 1877, Evans Holbrook
Waters And Water Courses - The Effect Of The Desert Land Act Of 1877, Evans Holbrook
Articles
The Act of March 3, 1877, generally known as the Desert Land Act, provides for the sale of desert lands to persons who agree to irrigate and cultivate such lands. The act defines desert lands as lands which will not, without some irrigation, produce crops, and provides that the Commissioner of the General Land Office shall determine what may be considered as such lands; it provides also that the right to the use of water on such lands shall depend upon appropriation, and continues as follows: "and all surplus water over and above such actual appropriation and use, together with …
Is A Contract Necessary To Create An Effective Escrow?, Ralph W. Aigler
Is A Contract Necessary To Create An Effective Escrow?, Ralph W. Aigler
Articles
WHERE land has been sold and both parties are desirous of protecting themselves pending full payment of the purchase price, there are two common ways of accomplishing their purpose without any change in legal ownership. There may be (1) a contract of sale properly evidenced so as to be enforceable, and (2) a deed executed by the vendor and placed "in escrow." Sometimes one method is preferred, sometimes the other. If the former is adopted, it is, of course, vitally important that the contract comply with the formal requirements of the law; in the latter there has been some difference …
The Registration Of Land Titles, John R. Rood
The Registration Of Land Titles, John R. Rood
Articles
It is proposed in this paper to consider some of the advantages and disadvantages of the older system of no registration, the later system of registering the instruments of conveyance, and the latest system of making the title depend entirely on a recorded adjudication that it is thus and so, which absolutely displaces all former titles, adjudicated or otherwise. It is also proposed to consider some of the reasons why the older systems persist.
The Character Of User In Prescription, Ralph W. Aigler
The Character Of User In Prescription, Ralph W. Aigler
Articles
As the possession of the claimant in a case of adverse possession must be shown to have been adverse in order to ripen into title, so also must the user in prescription be shown to have been adverse during the entire prescriptive period. As to the burden of proving the adverse character of the possession in the first case there seems to be doubt whether there is a presumption of adverseness by showing open possession and acts of ownership, or whether there is a burden upon the claimant to go further. See 2 AM. & ENG. ENCY. L. & P. …
Possession Under Mistake As Adverse Possession, Ralph W. Aigler
Possession Under Mistake As Adverse Possession, Ralph W. Aigler
Articles
In Wissinger v. Reed et al., 125 Pac. lO3O (Aug. 24, 1912) the Supreme Court of Washington held that actual possession of land for the statutory period would confer title upon the occupant, although the possession was under a mistaken belief of ownership. While the doctrine that title to real property may be acquired by adverse possession has been firmly established in English and American law for a great many years, no little difficulty and confusion have arisen in determining what possession is adverse, especially where the actual possession upon which the claim of title is based has been under …
Taxation Of Easements, Bradley M. Thompson
Taxation Of Easements, Bradley M. Thompson
Articles
In the case of Lever v. Grant,1 the supreme court passed incidentally upon the effect of a tax deed on an easement appurtenant to the estate on which the delinquent taxes had been levied. From the facts in that case it appears that in 1884 the owner of a parcel of land in the city of Detroit, bounded on the west by Woodward avenue, platted the same. The plat shows a street on the north side extending from Woodward avenue east thirty feet wide, one-half the width of an ordinary street. This street was named Custer Avenue. The next year, …
The Extent Of The Land To Which A Mechanics' Lien Attaches, Edson R. Sunderland
The Extent Of The Land To Which A Mechanics' Lien Attaches, Edson R. Sunderland
Articles
The statutes of the various states which define the scope and extent of mechanics' liens differ somewhat in respect to the quantity of land subject to such lien. Some arbitrarily limit it to a specified number of city lots or acres, but many statutes provide that the lien shall attach to the lot or land upon which the building or other improvement is situated, or to so much contiguous land as is necessary for the convenient use of the building. In most cases no difficulty arises in applying these provisions, but the terms are evidently loose and general, and it …
Statute Of Uses And The Modern Deed, John R. Rood
Statute Of Uses And The Modern Deed, John R. Rood
Articles
To what extent does the modem conveyance of estates in land in the United States by deed derive its validity from the English Statute of Uses, 27 Hen. 8, c. IO? No doubt the student, and especially the teacher, is inclined to magnify the importance of mere matters of history, because it is so much easier to understand or explain many of the terms and doctrines of real property law by approaching them historically, and, indeed, many of them cannot otherwise be understood at all. And yet we all have this constant, serious, and often difficult task, of separating matter …