Law Commons^™

Fee Simple Failures: Rural Landscapes And Race, Jessica A. Shoemaker

Michigan Law Review

Property law’s roots are rural. America pursued an early agrarian vision that understood real property rights as instrumental to achieving a country of free, engaged citizens who cared for their communities and stewarded their physical place in it. But we have drifted far from this ideal. Today, American agriculture is industrialized, and rural communities are in decline. The fee simple ownership form has failed every agrarian objective but one: the maintenance of white landownership. For it was also embedded in the original American experiment that land ownership would be racialized for the benefit of its white citizens, through acts of …

Complexity's Shadow: American Indian Property, Sovereignty, And The Future, Jessica A. Shoemaker

Michigan Law Review

This Article offers a new perspective on the challenges of the modern American Indian land tenure system. While some property theorists have renewed focus on isolated aspects of Indian land tenure, including the historic inequities of colonial takings of Indian lands, this Article argues that the complexity of today’s federally imposed reservation property system does much of the same colonizing work that historic Indian land policies—from allotment to removal to termination—did overtly. But now, these inequities are largely overshadowed by the daunting complexity of the whole land tenure structure. This Article introduces a new taxonomy of complexity in American Indian …

Passive Takings: The State's Affirmative Duty To Protect Property, Christopher Serkin

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause is to protect property owners from the most significant costs of legal transitions. Paradigmatically, a regulatory taking involves a government action that interferes with expectations about the content of property rights. Legal change has therefore always been central to regulatory takings claims. This Article argues that it does not need to be and that governments can violate the Takings Clause by failing to act in the face of a changing world. This argument represents much more than a minor refinement of takings law because recognizing governmental liability for failing to act means …

The Illusory Right To Abandon, Eduardo M. Penalver

Michigan Law Review

The unilateral and unqualified nature of the right to abandon (at least as it is usually described) appears to make it a robust example of the law's concern to safeguard the individual autonomy interests that many contemporary commentators have identified as lying at the heart of the concept of private ownership. The doctrine supposedly empowers owners of chattels freely and unilaterally to abandon them by manifesting the clear intent to do so, typically by renouncing possession of the object in a way that communicates the intent to forgo any future claim to it. A complication immediately arises, however due to …

The Inherent Power In Mapping Ownership, Michael P. Conzen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Cadastral Map in the Service of the State: A History of Property Mapping by Roger J.P. Kain and Elizabeth Baigent

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 …

Zero-Sum Madison, Thomas W. Merrill

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism by Jennifer Nedelsky

Less Law Than Meets The Eye, David D. Friedman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes by Robert C. Ellickson

Palestine And Israel: A Challenge To Justice, James E. Hopenfeld

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice by John Quigley

Easment Holder Liability Under Cercla: The Right Way To Deal With Rights-Of-Way, Jill D. Neiman

Michigan Law Review

Responding to growing public concern about the accumulation of toxic wastes, Congress in 1980 passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). CERCLA authorizes federal action to clean up, or to require others to clean up, leaking hazardous waste sites. Congress placed the financial burden for this cleanup on those responsible for the problem and on those who benefited from improper methods of hazardous waste disposal. Through this liability scheme, Congress also intended CERCLA to encourage responsible or benefited parties to respond voluntarily to the hazardous waste problem.

Part I asserts that CERCLA's legislative history, when read against …

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 …

Interest Representation And The Federal Land Policy And Management Act, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The role of the BLM under the FLPMA, this Note argues, is accurately captured in the "interest representation" model of administrative law; judicial review under this model serves to vindicate the "participation rights" of parties interested in public lands management. Part I places the FLPMA in the context of other recent congressional reform efforts and attempts to justify heightened judicial scrutiny of the BLM's activities. To protect citizens' participation rights, it concludes, courts should recognize a limited right to initiate the planning and management provisions of the FLPMA. The Act, in other words, should be interpreted to comprehend "agenda forcing" …

Reflections On The Exclusionary Zoning Of American Nature, A.E. Keir Nash

Michigan Law Review

Joseph Sax's Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks deserves more serious scrutiny than does the typical pro-wilderness treatise about the optimum future of our nation's public lands. That is because beneath its elegant form lies a unique argument. Sax's stated central aim is to test the core "preservationist" position concerning nonbusiness use of public lands to determine whether it is a position that Congress, administrative agencies, and the public "should be inclined to follow" (p. 3). The question is, given the "enormous growth of recreation in recent years" (p. 2), whether the national parks, forests, and deserts should …

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

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Everything in its Place: Social Order and Land Use in America by Constance Perin

Running Covenants And Public Policy, Olin L. Browder

Michigan Law Review

When first encountering covenants running with the land, one may react against the very idea. Why should any person be able to enforce a promise not made to him or be bound by a promise he did not make? Modern contract law, particularly the rules about the assignment of contract rights and the rights of third-party beneficiaries, may answer the first question, but does not explain how anyone can be bound by a promise neither expressly nor impliedly made or consented to by him.

On the other hand, persons_ familiar with easements, liens, or mortgages understand that land ownership can …

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 …

Proprietary Duties Of The Federal Government Under The Public Land Trust, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines one mechanism by which the courts might supervise public land administration: the common-law public land trust. It contends that by implementing this trust, which is a means of enforcing the government's responsibility for property held in a proprietary capacity, the courts can rectify their neglect of the public lands without overstepping the boundaries of permissible judicial involvement. The trust doctrine is particularly valuable in this context because it is a source of substantive standards in situations where statutes provide little guidance. Vitalization of the public land trust, which is distinct from the more commonly known public trust, …

Helpless Giants: The National Parks And The Regulation Of Private Lands, Joseph L. Sax

Michigan Law Review

While intrusive private activities have increased all around them, park managers have stood by nervously, sensing that they were caring for helpless giants. The Park Service is aware that Congress has given it very little explicit authority to regulate private lands, but underlying Park Service hesitancy to act is a more profound concern about the constitutional power of the federal government to control private land uses near and within the parks. These constitutional doubts, though largely misconceived, arise out of a complex set of issues that need to be clarified. This article first describes current administrative practice and existing legislation …

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.

Condemnation Blight And The Abutting Landowner, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This note will discuss the plight of abutting landowners, and explore various legal theories that may provide them with some recovery against the government units involved. Because most of the theories offer only limited possibilities of recovery, the final section of the note will argue for the creation of a more appropriate remedy.

Religious Corporations And The Law, Paul G. Kauper, Stephen C. Ellis

Michigan Law Review

This article will attempt to present a picture of the legal status of religious organizations, with particular reference to the enjoyment of the corporate privilege. Necessarily, this will involve at the outset an historical review tracing the development of that status, beginning with the practice of granting special charters to churches and culminating in the now familiar general incorporation statute. Special attention will be paid to distinctive problems that arose in Utah, Pennsylvania, and Virginia concerning corporate status. The historical review is followed by a summary survey of the current state laws relating to the incorporation of churches. The last …

The Conservationists And The Public Lands: Administrative And Judicial Remedies Relating To The Use And Disposition Of The Public Lands Administered By The Department Of The Interior, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The scope of the Department's functions is vast, and the statutory and regulatory materials dealing with those functions are overwhelming in their complexity and breadth. For that reason, this Comment will not seek to make an exhaustive examination of the agency's functions and procedures; rather, it will attempt to provide a selective illustration of the agency's procedures and functions and to concentrate on adjudicatory and review procedures, including judicial review. Because recent years have seen a marked increase in attention to resources and to conservation issues by persons and groups not otherwise directly concerned with the disposition of public lands, …

Preservation Of America's Open Space: Proposal For A National Land-Use Commission, Paul N. Mccloskey Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Environmental hazards may be divided into four types: those affecting air, those affecting water, those affecting quietude, and those affecting landscape. This Article will focus on the last of these hazards and will analyze a single aspect of it: the continuing loss of open-space lands. I suggest that this loss can be controlled only if we are willing, in the next decade, to review and to overhaul our entire basic system of land use and tax laws, accepting no present law as sacred other than the constitutional guarantee of just compensation for the taking of private property.

Marine: America The Raped: The Engineering Mentality And The Devastation Of A Continent, Owen Olpin

Michigan Law Review

A Review of America the Raped: The Engineering Mentality and the Devastation of a Continent by Gene Marine

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, …

Lefcoe: Land Development Law: Cases And Materials, Roger A. Cunningham

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Land Development Law: Cases and Materials by George Lefcoe

Income Tax--Listing Abandoned Residence For Sale And Not For Rent Considered Sufficient To Convert To "Property Held For The Production Of Income"--Hulet P. Smith, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Since 1941, Hulet Smith and his wife had lived in a large house in Arcadia, California, where Smith had been actively engaged in a real estate loan business. In 1959, Smith decided to retire and move to Pebble Beach, a distance of about 400 miles from Arcadia. He purchased a parcel of land in Pebble Beach and built a large expensive home, with the avowed intention of making this his permanent personal residence. In 1961, after severing all business and social connections in the vicinity of their old residence, Smith and his wife moved into their new home, taking virtually …

Bankruptcy--Stay Of Bankruptcy Proceedings Denied To Creditor Seeking Lien On Exempt Property--Harris V. Hoffman, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The appellants, husband and wife, executed a promissory note to the appellee-bank. Thereafter, they purchased real property which they occupied as a homestead. Acting pursuant to an Iowa statute which subjects a homestead to debts contracted before the homestead was acquired, the bank commenced a suit on the note in state court, but this proceeding was stayed when appellants filed a voluntary petition in bankruptcy. After the trustee in bankruptcy set the homestead apart as property exempt under Iowa law, the bank sought a stay of discharge in bankruptcy for a reasonable period of time so that it could obtain …

Leach: Property Law Indicted, Olin L. Browder Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Property Law Indicted by W. Barton Leach