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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Private Law In The Gaps, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski Oct 2016

Private Law In The Gaps, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Private law subjects like tort, contract, and property are traditionally taken to be at the core of the common law tradition, yet statutes increasingly intersect with these bodies of doctrine. This Article draws on recent work in private law theory and statutory interpretation to consider afresh what courts should do with private law in statutory gaps. In particular, it focuses on statutes touching on tort law, a field at the leading edge of private law theory. This Article's analysis unsettles some conventional wisdom about the intersection of private law and statutes. Many leading tort scholars and jurists embrace a regulatory …


Incumbent Landscapes, Disruptive Uses: Perspectives On Marijuana-Related Land Use Control, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2015

Incumbent Landscapes, Disruptive Uses: Perspectives On Marijuana-Related Land Use Control, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The story behind the move toward marijuana’s legality is a story of disruptive forces to the incumbent legal and physical landscape. It affects incumbent markets, incumbent places, the incumbent regulatory structure, and the legal system in general which must mediate the battles involving the push for relaxation of illegality and adaptation to accepting new marijuana-related land uses, against efforts toward entrenchment, resilience, and resistance to that disruption.

This Article is entirely agnostic on the issue of whether we should or should not decriminalize, legalize, or otherwise increase legal tolerance for marijuana or any other drugs. Nonetheless, we must grapple with …


Deeds And The Determinacy Norm: Insights From Brandt And Other Cases On An Undesignated, Yet Ever-Present, Interpretive Method, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2015

Deeds And The Determinacy Norm: Insights From Brandt And Other Cases On An Undesignated, Yet Ever-Present, Interpretive Method, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The land one holds is generally only as good as the property rights contained in the deed.
The rights contained in the deed are only as good as the ability to get those rights enforced.
And, the enforcement is only valuable if it recognizes a determinate meaning in the deeds from
the point of conveyance. This Article pens the term “determinacy norm” to explain a collection
of rules for the interpretation of deed terms that aim to make the meaning of deed terms determinate.
I contend that, in order to satisfy the determinacy norm for deed interpretation,
courts must (and …