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University of Michigan Law School

Property Law and Real Estate

Ownership

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Walking The Beach To The Core Of Sovereignty: The Historic Basis For The Public Trust Doctrine Applied In Glass V. Goeckel, Robert Haskell Abrams Jul 2007

Walking The Beach To The Core Of Sovereignty: The Historic Basis For The Public Trust Doctrine Applied In Glass V. Goeckel, Robert Haskell Abrams

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In 2004, a split panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals announced its conclusion that Michigan littoral owners of property owned to the water's very edge and could exclude members of the public from walking on the beach. In that instant almost 3300 miles of the Great Lakes foreshore became, in theory and in law, closed to public use. The case became the leading flash point of controversy between the vast public and ardent private property rights groups. A little more than one year later, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed that ruling as errant on public trust grounds and returned …


Property In Writing, Property On The Ground: Pigs, Horses, Land, And Citizenship In The Aftermath Of Slavery, Cuba, 1880-1909, Rebecca J. Scott, Michael Zeuske Jan 2002

Property In Writing, Property On The Ground: Pigs, Horses, Land, And Citizenship In The Aftermath Of Slavery, Cuba, 1880-1909, Rebecca J. Scott, Michael Zeuske

Articles

In the most literal sense, the abolition of slavery marks the moment when one human being cannot be held as property by another human being, for it ends the juridical conceit of a "person with a price." At the same time, the aftermath of emancipation forcibly reminds us that property as a concept rests on relations among human beings, not just between people and things. The end of slavery finds former masters losing possession of persons, and former slaves acquiring it. But it also finds other resources being claimed and contested, including land, tools, and animals-resources that have shaped former …


The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller Jan 1999

The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller

Articles

If your house and fields are worth more separately, divide them; if you want to leave a ring to your child now and grandchild later, split the ownership in a trust. The American law of property encourages owners to subdivide resources freely. Hidden within the law, however, is a boundary principle that limits the right to subdivide private property into wasteful fragments. While people often create wealth when they break up and recombine property in novel ways, owners may make mistakes, or their self-interest may clash with social welfare. Property law responds with diverse doctrines that prevent and abolish excessive …


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 Struggle For A Perpetuity, John R. Rood Jan 1910

The Struggle For A Perpetuity, John R. Rood

Articles

It is natural for us moderns to conceive of the right to alienate as an inseparable incident of ownership, since we have known no other condition; and in the modern books and decisions the subject is generally disposed of with the curt statement as if it were a truism. It is believed that to such as are not familiar with the history of that doctrine a review of the struggle through centuries, by which it was finally established on its present firm foundation, would not be devoid of interest.