Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Legal History Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 24 of 24

Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Supreme Neglect Of Text And History, William Michael Treanor Apr 2009

Supreme Neglect Of Text And History, William Michael Treanor

Michigan Law Review

Since his classic book Takings appeared in 1985, Richard Epstein's ideas have profoundly shaped debate about the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause to a degree that no other scholar can even begin to approach. His broad, original, and stunningly ambitious reading of the clause has powerfully influenced thinking in academia, in the judiciary, and in the political arena. The firestorm of controvery that followed the Supreme Court's recent decision in Kelo - in which the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a municipal urban renewal plan that displaced long-time homeowners and conveyed their land to developers - is in critical part …


Property, Contracts, And Politics, Mark Tushnet Apr 2007

Property, Contracts, And Politics, Mark Tushnet

Michigan Law Review

Rebecca Scott is a historian, not an economist. Describing how a dispute over a mule's ownership was resolved, Professor Scott reproduces a receipt two claimants left when they took the mule from the plantation whose manager claimed it as well (p. 185). By contrast, analyzing property relations in the pre-Civil War American South, economic historian Jenny Wahl observes, "[E]conomic historians tend to [use] ... frequency tables, graphs, and charts." The differences in visual aids to understanding indicate the various ways historians and economists approach a single topic-the relation between markets and politics, the latter defined to include the deployment of …


Legal Fictions In Pierson V. Post, Andrea Mcdowell Feb 2007

Legal Fictions In Pierson V. Post, Andrea Mcdowell

Michigan Law Review

American courts and citizens generally take the importance of private property for granted. Scholars have sought to explain its primacy using numerous legal doctrines, including natural law, the Lockean principle of a right to the product of one's labor, Law & Economics theories about the incentives created by property ownership, and the importance of bright line rules. The leading case on the necessity of private property, Pierson v. Post, makes all four of these points. This Article argues that Pierson has been misunderstood. Pierson was in fact a defective torts case that the judges shoe-horned into a property mold …


Toward A Constitutional Kleptocracy: Civil Forfeiture In America, Stephan B. Herpel May 1998

Toward A Constitutional Kleptocracy: Civil Forfeiture In America, Stephan B. Herpel

Michigan Law Review

Leonard Levy, the legal historian who has written a number of highly regarded historical studies on various provisions of the United States Constitution, has added to his impressive oeuvre a new study of civil and criminal forfeiture. A License to Steal brings together a discussion of English legal history, a review of a number of Nineteenth Century and late Twentieth Century Supreme Court forfeiture decisions, accounts of actual applications of civil and criminal forfeiture, and a summary and critique of legislative proposals that have been made for reform of the civil forfeiture provisions of the federal drug statute. There is …


Stories About Property, William W. Fisher Iii May 1996

Stories About Property, William W. Fisher Iii

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Carol M. Rose, Property and Persuasion: Essays on the History, Theory, and Rhetoric of Ownership


The Inherent Power In Mapping Ownership, Michael P. Conzen May 1994

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


Zero-Sum Madison, Thomas W. Merrill May 1992

Zero-Sum Madison, Thomas W. Merrill

Michigan Law Review

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


Transfers Of Property In Eleventh-Century Norman Law, William John Gallagher May 1989

Transfers Of Property In Eleventh-Century Norman Law, William John Gallagher

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law by Emily Zack Tabuteau


Women And The Law Of Property In Early America, David H. Bromfield May 1987

Women And The Law Of Property In Early America, David H. Bromfield

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Women and the Law of Property in Early America by Marylynn Salmon


Religious Corporations And The Law, Paul G. Kauper, Stephen C. Ellis Aug 1973

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 …


Simpson: An Introduction To The History Of The Land Law, Daniel M. Schuyler Jan 1962

Simpson: An Introduction To The History Of The Land Law, Daniel M. Schuyler

Michigan Law Review

A Review of AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE LAND LAW. By A. W. B. Simpson.


Should The Rule Against Perpetuities Discard Its Vest?, Daniel M. Schuyler Apr 1958

Should The Rule Against Perpetuities Discard Its Vest?, Daniel M. Schuyler

Michigan Law Review

From what has preceded it is apparent that none of those who would reform the rule against perpetuities, excepting Professor Simes, has suggested that the rule's application to remoteness of vesting alone requires investigation. Yet there is little doubt that this aspect of the rule has caused as much if not more litigation than those which have been so harshly condemned. Proof of this assertion will not be undertaken, for every property lawyer knows how frequently courts are called upon to determine whether for purposes of the rule an interest is "vested" or "contingent." Professor Simes put it well when …


The Wills Branch Of The Worthier Title Doctrine, Joseph W. Morris Feb 1956

The Wills Branch Of The Worthier Title Doctrine, Joseph W. Morris

Michigan Law Review

It is the purpose of this article to examine the history and origin of the wills branch of the worthier title doctrine, to ascertain the extent of its application and the manner of its application, to determine the legal consequences flowing therefrom, and to consider the desirability of its continued existence.


Michigan Title Examinations And The 1954 Revenue Code's New General Lien Provisions, L. Hart Wright Jan 1955

Michigan Title Examinations And The 1954 Revenue Code's New General Lien Provisions, L. Hart Wright

Michigan Law Review

Title examiners, and more particularly their clients, have long suffered from a controversy-limited almost exclusively to Michigan- involving the methods by which the United States Treasury Department could perfect general federal tax liens. The December 1952 issue of the Michigan Law Review carried an article by the present writer pointing up the irreconcilable difference which has existed for a quarter of a century between the type of record notice which the Treasury was willing to provide prospective bona fide purchasers et al., and the quite different and more demanding type which the Michigan Legislature insisted upon if the local offices …


Skeie: Odelsretten Og Aseteretten, Nils B. Skavang Jun 1953

Skeie: Odelsretten Og Aseteretten, Nils B. Skavang

Michigan Law Review

A Review of ODELSRETTEN OG ASETERETTEN By Jon Skeie.


Treaties Governing The Succession To Real Property By Aliens, Willard L. Boyd, Jr. May 1953

Treaties Governing The Succession To Real Property By Aliens, Willard L. Boyd, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Under customary international law no nation has the duty to grant to aliens the right to hold real property. Although international law accords to an alien the privilege of participating in the economic life of the state of his residence, this privilege does not encompass the right to hold real property. The right to succeed to and hold real property is a matter solely within the competence of a nation. It is for each nation exclusively to regulate the acquisition and tenure of real property. National authority in this regard can be traced to the concept that the sovereign may …


Restraints On Alienation Of Equitable Interests In Michigan Property, William F. Fratcher Feb 1953

Restraints On Alienation Of Equitable Interests In Michigan Property, William F. Fratcher

Michigan Law Review

In the Middle Ages a conveyance of land to a monastic corporation resulted in a serious loss of income to the feudal overlord. As such corporations never died, the overlord ceased to receive the reliefs payable on the death of a tenant and to enjoy the feudal incidents of wardship and marriage of minor heirs. Monks could not be compelled to perform military services and it was difficult or impossible to compel a monastery to perform other services incident to tenure. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw great expansion in monastic land holdings and consequent loss to the king and …


Restraints On Alienation Of Legal Interests In Michigan Property: Iii, William F. Fratcher May 1952

Restraints On Alienation Of Legal Interests In Michigan Property: Iii, William F. Fratcher

Michigan Law Review

In England the impossibility of inter vivos creation of interests in expectancy in chattels and the unsuitability for the purpose of the devices of bailment and contract have tended to restrict attempts to restrain the alienation of chattels to the trust device and provisions in wills for forfeiture on alienation. The trust device involves equitable interests, which are beyond the scope of this study. In connection with a bequest of the use and occupation of chattels for life or a term of years the English courts would probably sustain the validity of a provision for forfeiture on alienation by way …


Restraints On Alienation Of Legal Interests In Michigan Property: I, William F. Fratcher Mar 1952

Restraints On Alienation Of Legal Interests In Michigan Property: I, William F. Fratcher

Michigan Law Review

During the century and a half which followed the Norman Conquest, the owner of land who attempted to transfer it might meet with opposition from three interested parties, his feudal overlord, his heir apparent and his tenant. His feudal overlord might object to a transfer by way of substitution, that is, one under the terms of which the transferor did not retain a reversion; because the proposed transferee was not a suitable person to perform the feudal services due for the land. As these services were frequently of a personal or military nature such an objection was not necessarily captious. …


Powell: Real Property, Allan F. Smith Dec 1950

Powell: Real Property, Allan F. Smith

Michigan Law Review

A Review of REAL PROPERTY. Vol. 1. By Richard R. Powell.


The Development Of The Massachusetts Probate System, Thomas E. Atkinson Dec 1943

The Development Of The Massachusetts Probate System, Thomas E. Atkinson

Michigan Law Review

American lawyers and laymen alike take for granted a system of probate of wills and administration of decedents' estates under the supervision of a single tribunal usually called a probate court. We are familiar with the setting up of the will, appointment of the personal representative, filing of bond and inventory by the latter, granting of allowances for support of the family, notice to creditors to present their claims, and settlement of accounts of the administration, all accomplished by this court's orders or under its scrutiny. While real property is deemed to pass directly to the heirs or devisees, it …


A Legal Approach To Equitable Servitudes, Ralph A. Newman Oct 1943

A Legal Approach To Equitable Servitudes, Ralph A. Newman

Michigan Law Review

The variety of conceptions of the nature of equitable servitudes is only one indication of the complexity of this particular branch of the law; the difficulty of classifying the topic as a branch of equity rather than of real property, or the reverse, is another, and one which grows out of the interplay of both of these divisions of the law upon the particular field of equitable servitudes. The following discussion is designed to indicate that many of the difficulties inherent in the concept of equitable servitudes may be resolved by analyzing the subject from the point of approach of …


Waters And Watercourses-Right Of Public Passage Along Great Lakes Beaches Jun 1933

Waters And Watercourses-Right Of Public Passage Along Great Lakes Beaches

Michigan Law Review

May the littoral owner whose summer cottage abuts on one of the Great Lakes bring actions of trespass quare clausum against pedestrians who traverse the sand beach which lies at the aquatic terminus of his property? To state the same problem in different form, may he build a lateral line fence designed to exclude the public from that segment of the lake-side beach which he claims as his? The question has never been directly decided by the supreme court of any State, yet it is a source of constant strife between littoral owners who desire privacy and seclusion, and strolling …


Some Greek Legal Papyri From The Michigan Collection, A Er Boak Jun 1922

Some Greek Legal Papyri From The Michigan Collection, A Er Boak

Michigan Law Review

The documents which form the subject of this paper are part of the Michigan Collection of Papyri recently acquired by Professor F. W. Kelsey in Egypt and secured for the University by the generosity of the Regents and certain friends and alumni, among the latter Mr. J. W. Anderson, of the Law Class of 189o. A large proportion of these documents are of a legal nature, and from these I have selected for translation four, which may be regarded as typical specimens of their respective classes.