Law Commons^™

Adapting Private Law For Climate Change Adaptation, Jim Rossi, J. B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law Review

The private law of torts, property, and contracts will and should play an important role in resolving disputes regarding how private individuals and entities respond to and manage the harms of climate change that cannot be avoided through mitigation (known in climate change policy dialogue as “adaptation”). While adaptation is commonly presented as a problem needing legislative solutions, this Article presents a novel and overdue case for private law to take climate adaptation seriously.

To date, the role of private law is a significant blind spot in scholarly discussions of climate adaptation. Litigation invoking common-law doctrines in climate adaption disputes …

The Perils Of Popularity: David Josiah Brewer And The Politics Of Judicial Reputation, J. Gordon Hylton

Vanderbilt Law Review

David Brewer is hardly a household name in the contemporary legal academy. Most American professors of constitutional law would have a hard time placing his nearly twenty-one years of service on the U.S. Supreme Court, though most would be savvy enough to guess "Lochner era." He is probably the least well-known of all the Justices whose careers are examined in this Symposium. (Brewer's longtime colleague Rufus Peckham is probably his chief contender for this title.) For the record, Brewer sat on the Supreme Court from January of 1890 until his death in March of 1910.

In his own era, Brewer …

Overcoming Another Tragedy In New Orleans: Rebuilding In The Wake Of "Kelo" And Act No. 851, William C. Spaht

Vanderbilt Law Review

During Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, thousands of Gulf Coast residents lost their homes, their possessions, their savings, and some, their lives. Those states hit hardest by the hurricanes have struggled to recover. In places like New Orleans, where hundreds of thousands of residents evacuated and may never return, uncertainty regarding the future of private property has become a fact of life. As the excerpt from Senator McPherson's letter indicates, arguably the single most critical question facing local and state governments trying to rebuild the devastated coast is how to encourage use of abandoned properties to spark the economy.

Michael A. …

Mistaken Identity: Unveiling The Property Characteristics Of Political Money, Spencer A. Overton

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article argues that money contributed to and spent on political campaigns ('political money") possesses many of the traits that explain judicial respect for regulation of property, and that courts reviewing restrictions on political money should consider doctrines associated with the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment Property Clauses. As evidenced by the different degrees of respect afforded to regulations of property and speech, judicial treatment of a particular liberty interest can be explained by the presence and particular posturing of distinct functional issues such as distrust, scarcity, distribution, and interference with others' interests. Campaign finance jurisprudence, however, has categorized political money …

The Hidden Costs Of The Progressivity Debate, Nancy C. Staudt

Vanderbilt Law Review

Progressive taxation-taxing high income individuals at a proportionally higher level than low income individuals-has sparked more than a century of controversy. Those who support progressive taxation have heralded it as a policy that promotes the greatest good for the greatest number in society protects traditional democratic values, reflects the communitarian world-view of women who see themselves as responsible for the well-being of all individuals, and reveals the "aesthetic judgment" that income inequality is "distinctly evil or unlovely." At the same time, critics have condemned progressive income taxation as social policy that amounts to theft and involuntary servitude, reflects the democratic …

Regulatory Takings And Ripeness In The Federal Courts, Gregory M. Stein

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Supreme Court held in 1987 that compensation is required automatically whenever a municipality takes property by regulation. The Court has also held repeatedly that federal courts cannot even hear such claims until the landowner meets a demanding ripeness test. Landowners are often unable to survive the protracted ripening period even though their claims might ultimately have proved to be valid. And the occasional municipality that loses a takings case may be liable for a huge award that reflects the lengthy ripening period. Federal courts have persistently refused to acknowledge this tension between takings law and takings procedure.

This Article …

"Property" In The Fifth Amendment: A Quest For Common Ground In The Maze Of Regulatory Takings, David C. Buck

Vanderbilt Law Review

In 1922, the Supreme Court embarked on its first decision to protect property owners from unbridled, uncompensated government regulation. Prior to Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, the courts applied the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendments only to "'direct appropriation[s]' of property ... or the functional equivalent of a 'practical ouster of [the owner's] possession.' " Mahon established that governmental regulation that affects an owner's use of his land may constitute a taking under the Fifth Amendment. In Mahon, Justice Holmes recognized the need for constitutional limits on the government's power to impair certain rights inherent in the ownership …

Property And Liberty Reconsidered, Herman Belz

Vanderbilt Law Review

This perceptive, lucid, and sympathetic account of property rights in American constitutional law by Professor James W. Ely, Jr., is further evidence of the conservative challenge to liberal orthodoxy that has emerged in recent years in American historiography. That the book appears under the cosponsorship of the Organization of American Historians, one of the more militantly liberal scholarly associations in the United States, is a small but significant sign of the changing intellectual climate.

As conceived of in contemporary liberal historiography, protection of individual property rights is but one element of economic liberty. Equally if not more important, according to …

The Great Section 38 Property Muddle, J. A. Cragwall, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Twelve full years have elapsed since section 38 property made its first appearance on the stage of tax law. In those twelve years, a complicated, confusing, ad hoc, and often inconsistent body of rulings and judicial decisions has grown up around the definitional regulation; words and phrases have acquired strange new meanings and connotations in the lush overgrowth of legal reasoning clinging to that regulation. The paradoxes in the regulation (such as that addressed in Weirick) and, more often, the ambiguities resulting from an almost universal failure by the regulations to define, instead of simply illustrate, its terms (such as …

Alternative Gains Tax Treatments Of Decedents' Appreciated Capital Assets, D. Allen Grumbine

Vanderbilt Law Review

The present treatment of appreciated assets under section 1014' of the Code permits a great deal of accrued appreciation to escape the income tax. While decedents pay a greater estate tax because asset appreciation swells their estates, they pay no gains tax at death on this accrued appreciation. Moreover, the recipients of the decedent's property generally take a stepped-up basis for the property equal to its fair market value at the time of death. A great deal of criticism has been leveled at this system, and numerous proposals have been made for remedying the situation: imposition of a capital gains …

Book Review, Neill H. Alford, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

For the decade 1960-1970, any available prize for the most stimulating product of interest to estate planners by an individual writer certainly should go to Dean Thomas L. Shaffer' for "Death, Property, and Lawyers." This is an imaginative and stimulating book. A practicing lawyer who gives close attention to Dean Shaffer's work should be aided in evaluating his relationships with his estate planning clients. Even if this lawyer cannot be brought to a detailed evaluation, he at least will be brought to the threshold of introspection. Dean Shaffer does not attempt to unravel the whole "psychological story" in estate planning; …

Another And Hopefully Final Look At The Property--Personal Liberty Distinction Of Section 1343(3), John Lecornu

Vanderbilt Law Review

Recent years have witnessed increasing confusion and uncertainty over the proper scope of section 1343(3) of Title 28 of the United States Code, the jurisdictional counterpart of section 1983 of Title 42. Both provisions originated in the Civil Rights Act of 1871. Section 1983 creates a cause of action to redress the deprivation, under color of state law, of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution or laws. Section 1343(3) grants to the federal district courts original jurisdiction, irrespective of amount in controversy, over any civil action authorized by law that is commenced by any person: "To redress …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Corporations--Equity--Specific Performance of Stock Option Granted Because of Tax Advantage Feature of Option

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Property--Landlord-Tenant--Rabbinical Court Establishes Far-Reaching Standard of Landlords' Obligations to Tenants

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Taxation--Federal Estate Taxation--Under Treasury Regulation Section 20.2031-8(b), Value of Shares in Mutual Funds Is Public Offering Price on Date of Death Rather Than Redemption Price

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Taxation--Mineral Rights--Carried Interest Loses Deduction for Depletion, Depreciation, and Intangible Drilling Costs During Recoupment

Conflict Of Laws -- Constitutionality Of State Statutes Governing Ability Of Nonresident Aliens To Receive Property Under American Wills: Zschernig V. Miller, Richard N. Hale

Vanderbilt Law Review

An excellent illustration of the vertical conflict of laws problem involves the ability of nonresident aliens to receive property under American wills. Traditionally, under the American federal system,the acquisition and transmission of property located within a state has been controlled by state law. Yet article I, section 10 of the United States Constitution imposes strict limitations on a state's power to deal with matters having a bearing on international relations, such matters being within the ambit of the national government. The supremacy of the national government in the general field of foreign affairs has been given continuous recognition by the …

Corporate Securities As "Business Property", Thomas G. Bost

Vanderbilt Law Review

Inadequacies of the statutory definition of "capital asset" have led the courts to develop the concept of "business property," which serves to distinguish everyday business activities from investment activities.This concept is now being applied by courts in a wide variety of factual situations involving corporate securities. However, unless objective, easily ascertainable limits to the "business property" concept are found, confusion and inconsistency may mark the development of future case law. The rules developed by the American Law Institute's Discussion Draft Study of Definitional Problems in Capital Gains Taxation appear to provide these objective limits. Because they are consistent with the …

Compensation For Victims Of Crimes, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

The steadily increasing number of crimes in the United States and other Western countries brings about not only the destruction of property and the expenditure of money and effort to apprehend and punish the criminals, but also physical injury to thousands of innocent victims.' Although our society has established elaborate safe-guards for the rights of the accused criminal, the injured victim is left to shoulder the responsibility of paying his own medical bills and providing for his own living expenses while he is unable to work. Because of the extremely high cost of medical and hospital care, even a well …

Condominium: A Reconciliation Of Competing Interests?, James C. Clark

Vanderbilt Law Review

This note will first examine some of the operative provisions of the condominium statutes. Particular emphasis will be placed upon those provisions which are basic to the creation, existence, and dissolution of this unique form of property ownership. The FHA Model Statute For Creation of Apartment Ownership will be the principal vehicle of analysis, for it is the basis of many of the state condominium statutes. State provisions which differ from the Model Act will then be examined to discover the best statutory answer to the needs of condominium housing. Finally, attention will be focused on the tax implications of …

Right Of First Refusal--Homogeniety In The Condominium, Ira E. Parker, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

The condominium, a newly popular but relatively old' concept in real property law, is defined basically as an apartment project involving individual fee ownership of a family unit in a multi-unit structure or structures. To complete the ownership picture, the individual fee owners are also tenants in common, with undivided interests, in the land on which the structure is built, and in other parts of the structure which are not part of an individual unit. Due to the anticipated popularity of this unconventional real estate ownership,state legislation has blossomed in the past four years, and today, all but a few …

Decedents' Estates, Trusts And Future Interest -- 1964 Tennessee Survey, Herman L. Trautman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Validity of Instrument Which Only Appoints Fiduciary--Is an instrument which makes no testamentary gift, but only designates or appoints the personal representative to administer the estate and provides certain special powers of fiduciary administration entitled to probate as a valid will? While it has been said that there need be no dispositive gift of property to entitle a testamentary writing to probate as a will,' there seems to have been no definite court decision in Tennessee so holding until the recent case of Delaney v. First Peoples Bank of Johnson City. In that case a writing properly executed with the …

Insurance -- 1964 Tennessee Survey, Robert N. Covington

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Phoenix Ins. Co. v. Brown,' the named insured in a fire policy was Walter Brown. Walter had at one time owned the property insured. He had, however, conveyed it to his divorced wife Elsie, for whom he "was looking after the property," prior to the taking out of this policy. It was not alleged that the defendant's agent (who had previously written other policies on the property in Walter's name at the time Walter was the title-holder) knew of the conveyance to Elsie. After total destruction by fire the defendant refused to pay on the grounds of the lack …

Reflections Upon Hegel's Concept Of Property, Contract, Punishment, And Constitutional Law, Morris D. Forkosch

Vanderbilt Law Review

Codification and re-codification in federal and state jurisdictions has proceeded in a geometrical progression these past decades. To what extent is the old law yielding or, au contraire, to what extent is the ancient law reappearing? For example, are Plato's views on crime and punishment being revived, continued, or changed?' Or,to what extent are Hegel's views in a certain few legal areas of present interest and value? As we shall see, an understanding of Hegel's juris-prudential views, as related to specific topics, is a present-day pragmatic necessity. We propose to seek these views, albeit briefly, in the fields of property, …

Removal Of Future Interest Encumbrances--Sale Of The Fee Simple Estate, Candler S. Rogers

Vanderbilt Law Review

The removal of future interest encumbrances on realty may in proper cases relieve hardship of private parties and be of benefit to the community by rendering the land marketable and productive. The author here examines the scope of equity jurisdiction in these cases and the applicable statutes. The author concludes with proposals to improve the statutory treatment of the problem and suggests that equity already has the power to provide the relief contained in his statutory proposals.

A Tale Of Two Cases, William H. Agnor

Vanderbilt Law Review

Professor Agnor here traces the development of what he suggests is a bad rule of law which originated in a poor decision of a jurisdiction highly respected for its decisions on the law of future interests. The author's demonstration of how the case has been blindly followed by both bench and bar underscores his message that members of the legal profession must not rely on encyclopedic statements of the law without an examination into the policies and problems involved.

Restitution - 1963 Tennessee Survey, Brad Reed

Vanderbilt Law Review

Constructive trusts are related to the field of trusts in somewhat the same way that quasi-contracts are today related to the field of contracts-in misnomer only. A judicial declaration of a constructive trust means simply that the holder of legal title to the property affected, must convey it to the person for whose benefit the constructive trust is declared.' The primary efficacy of this equitable remedy is that it gives the successful complainant a preference over all the defendant's creditors; its theory is not that the complainant is trying to reach the defendant's property, but rather that the property which …

State And Local Taxation -- 1962 Tennessee Survey, Paul I. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

I. Exemption of Religious Institution from Property Taxation--Taxation of Parking Lots and Cafeterias Operated by Exempt Institution for Employees

II. Apportionment of Income from a Multistate Unitary Business for Excise Tax Purpose--Inclusion of Income from Sale of Extra-State Land in Measure of Tax

III. Taxability as Income to Stockholder of Distributions from Massachusetts Trust--Distributions in Cash and Stock of Capital Gains from Sales of Securities

IV. Sales Taxes--Taxability of Contractor Installing Air Conditioning Equipment for Tax Exempt User

V. Penalties for Delinquencies in Sales and Use Taxes--Mistake as Basis for Relieving Against Penalty for Delinquencies

The Capital Gains "Holding" Dilemma, Allen Sultan

Vanderbilt Law Review

An important question under the capital gains provisions of the revenue laws is the meaning of the term "hold." The author studies judicial concepts of "holding" and concludes that inconsistencies have been introduced by judicial reaction to changing concepts of property. Noting that past legislative attempts to remedy the situation have been fruitless, he issues a call for "enlightened" congressional action.

Insurance -- 1961 Tennessee Survey, Robert N. Covington

Vanderbilt Law Review

The developments in the Tennessee law of insurance during the past year were important without being surprising. The various courts delivered opinions dealing with a number of the central issues in insurance law, especially in the field of risk control, and by and large followed the line of thinking established by past years. Many of the decisions are of less significance than one might suppose, because of their extreme involvement in particular fact situations.

State And Local Taxation, Paul J. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

That the field of state and local taxation is bedoming much more important, as well as increasingly active, is shown by a number of recent significant major developments that are of interest and concern to taxpayers and their counsel everywhere. Ten state tax cases are already on the United States Supreme Court docket for consideration during the Term commencing October 5, 1959.' During the past term at least a half dozen important state tax cases were decided by the Supreme Court, including the epochal Northwestern-Stockham decision, which threw much of the legal profession, as well as many taxpayers, into a …

Insurance--1959 Tennessee Survey, William R. Andersen

Vanderbilt Law Review

What is the meaning of the term "actual cash value" in the standard fire policy? The middle section of the court of appeals, following a prior Tennessee case and the weight of authority, held that the phrase is synonomous with "market value" only where the goods are readily replaceable in a current market. Where there is no market, or where the market value is inadequate to properly indemnify the insured, "actual cash value" means the "'value to the owner' or the loss he suffers in being deprived of the goods." Since the goods involved in this case were personal effects, …

Loss Of Citizenship -- Statutory Expatriation, David E. Nelson Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

There is no provision in the United States Constitution which expressly gives or denies Congress a right to deprive a person of, or prescribe a method whereby a person may lose, his citizenship. Yet in the Nationality Act of 1940 Congress provided for the involuntary expatriation of an American citizen upon the intentional commission of one or more of several specified acts. In 1957 three cases involving this statute reached the Supreme Court of the United States. The constitutionality of the section providing for loss of citizenship by voting in a foreign election was upheld; the one providing for loss …