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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Essential Structure Of Property Law, James Y. Stern
The Essential Structure Of Property Law, James Y. Stern
Michigan Law Review
This Article examines a characteristic of property entitlements fundamental to the structure of property systems that has received scant academic attention, a characteristic referred to as the mutual exclusivity principle. According to this principle, a property system does not allow for the existence of incompatible rights. Two people cannot separately be the owners of the same resource, for instance. By contrast, two people can each hold valid but contradictory contract rights to the resource. Although the existing property literature has stressed the “exclusive” nature of property, the various ways in which property is imagined to be exclusive, such as by …
Who Is Afraid Of Perpetual Trusts?, Bridget J. Crawford
Who Is Afraid Of Perpetual Trusts?, Bridget J. Crawford
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
Throw a stone into a room full of law professors, and it is virtually impossible to hit someone who will defend perpetual trusts. Yet since 1995, eighteen states have repealed their rules against perpetuities, and there are now twenty-one states that permit trusts to last forever. Many academics have responded with a virtual pile-on, calling the repeals a "race to the bottom" at best and "loony" at worst. Lawrence Waggoner, Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Law and Reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers, has made another contribution to the scrum. …
Non-Judicial Estate Settlement, John H. Martin
Non-Judicial Estate Settlement, John H. Martin
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Estate settlement through probate procedures satisfies no one. The public is hostile to the delay, expense, and lack of privacy that accompanies probate. Attorneys respond to public dissatisfaction by counseling probate avoidance. Legislatures facilitate some settlements by enacting simplified procedures for low-value estates. In large measure, the Uniform Probate Code (UPC) was a response to criticisms leveled at probate. Alternative settlement procedures are offered by the UPC, including informal testacy determinations and informal appointment procedures. These alternatives, however, remain imbedded in a judicial system, with it procedural rigidities. The UPC informal settlement alternatives did not silence the criticism. The continued …
Children Of Assisted Reproduction, Kristine S. Knaplund
Children Of Assisted Reproduction, Kristine S. Knaplund
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
More than three decades after the birth of the first child conceived through in vitro fertilization, few states have comprehensive statutes to establish the parentage of children born using assisted reproduction techniques (ART). While thousands of such children are born each year courts struggle to apply outdated laws. For example, does a statute terminating paternity for a man who donates sperm to a married woman apply if the woman is unmarried? In 2008, the Uniform Probate Code (UPC) added two much-needed sections on the complicated parentage and inheritance issues that arise in the field of assisted reproduction. Yet it is …
Trusts And The Doctrine Of Estates, Olin L. Browder Jr.
Trusts And The Doctrine Of Estates, Olin L. Browder Jr.
Michigan Law Review
The "doctrine of estates" is the common law system for the classification of divided ownership. Its primary purpose is to differentiate the legal consequences of the variety of concurrent, present, and future estates, but it also serves to differentiate the dispositive language required to create or transfer such estates. The doctrine of estates, therefore, embraces a sizable part of the law of conveyancing, including the large body of doctrine known as rules of construction.
In modern practice the classification and construction of present and future interests usually occurs with respect to beneficial interests in trust. It has not been sufficiently …
Streamlining Conveyancing Procedure, Paul E. Basye
Streamlining Conveyancing Procedure, Paul E. Basye
Michigan Law Review
Statutes of limitations have long occupied an essential and important place in every system of jurisprudence. They express a policy that is essential to social progress in a great variety of ways. Their effect is particularly noteworthy in the field of property law where they promote repose and give security to human affairs. "They stimulate to activity and punish negligence. While time is constantly destroying the evidence of rights, they supply its place by a presumption which renders proof unnecessary."
Trusts - Accumulation Of Income, James L. Mccrystal
Trusts - Accumulation Of Income, James L. Mccrystal
Michigan Law Review
Testator left his estate in trust until twenty-one years after the death of two nieces, the trust income to be used first to pay several annuities and the remainder "to be re-invested by the trustee for the increase and benefit of this trust fund." At the expiration of twenty-one years after the death of both nieces the trust was to terminate and the estate to be distributed. The lower court held that, while the trust did not violate the rule against perpetuities nor the District of Columbia statute as to the suspension of the power of alienation, the trust income …
Bankruptcy-Effect Of Discharge On Assignment Of Expectancy
Bankruptcy-Effect Of Discharge On Assignment Of Expectancy
Michigan Law Review
The Bankruptcy Act of the United States provides for the preservation of liens against a bankrupt's property not specifically declared by the Act itself to be dissolved because of fraud or because obtained within four months prior to the filing of the petition in bankruptcy. A discharge in bankruptcy protects the bankrupt from personal liability but does not affect valid and subsisting liens. These may be enforced after the discharge is granted
Recent Important Decisions
Michigan Law Review
A collection of recent important court decisions.
Recent Important Decisions
Michigan Law Review
A collection of recent important court decisions.
Recent Important Decisions
Michigan Law Review
A collection of recent important court decisions.