Law Commons^™

Of Property And Antiproperty, Abraham Bell, Gideon Parchomovsky

Michigan Law Review

Private property is widely perceived as a potent prodevelopment and anticonservationist force. The drive to accumulate wealth through private property rights is thought to encourage environmentally destructive development; legal protection of such property rights is believed to thwart environmentally friendly public measures. Indeed, property rights advocates and environmentalists are generally described as irreconcilable foes. This presumed clash often leads environmentalists to urge public acquisition of private lands. Interestingly, less attention is paid to the possibility that the government may prove no better a conservator than private owners. Government actors often mismanage conservation properties, collaborating with private developers to dispose of …

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 …

Real Property-Licenses-Revocability Of Parol Licenses Which Have Been Acted Upon, Charles E. Oldfather

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, operator of a boat company, owned land adjoining a river. X held land between that of the plaintiff and a county road. Plaintiff, seeking to secure a way from his property to the county road, offered by letter to purchase forty acres from X, and upon refusal, attempted to buy a forty foot strip, which was again refused. There was further correspondence, in which the parties referred to an "easement" or a "right of way," which terminated in a letter from X saying: ''From the standpoint of this company, there will be no objection to you building a …

Deeds - Construction - Effect Of Words Showing Purpose Of Grant, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff sought to enjoin defendants from drilling for oil and gas on a strip of land which defendants claimed through a "right of way deed" conveying and warranting the strip to a railroad company "as and for its right of way'' and describing the land as "across and upon" a certain quarter-section. The deed recited as consideration $250 and the benefits accruing to the grantor through the construction and operation of a railroad on the land. Tracks were never laid on the strip, but the railroad company continued to pay taxes thereon. Held, that under Illinois law a fee …

Railroads -- Extent Of Title Acquired By Railroad By Adverse Possession Of Land Used As Right-Of-Way - Effect On Mineral Rights, Roy L. Rogers

Michigan Law Review

In a recent Michigan case it appeared that for more than the statutory period of limitation the plaintiff railroad had maintained a right-of-way over land to which the defendant held the record title. A decree quieting title in fee simple absolute in the plaintiff railroad was sought in order to determine the ownership of the oil and gas underlying the right-of-way. The court held that the railroad acquired by adverse user of the right-of-way no title to the oil and gas or other minerals beneath the surface of the land.

Party Walls - Replacement And Removal, Charles W. Allen

Michigan Law Review

The usual American theory of the rights of adjoining land owners in a party wall is that each owns in severalty that part of the wall on his land and each has an easement of support in that part on the land of the other. If the structure is erected under an express contract, the rights of the parties are determined by the terms of their contract. And when the easement of support is created by prescription, its scope is measured by the prior user, and no right to remove or replace the wall can exist by virtue of the …

Easements-Way Of Necessity-Sale Of Servent Estate To Bona Fide Purchaser Without Notice

Michigan Law Review

M conveyed a portion of his land to X, through whom the defendant claims, the circumstances being such that X acquired a way of necessity over the land retained by M. X recorded his deed. Later M conveyed his remaining land to H, through whom the plaintiff claims. H was a purchaser for value without notice of the way of necessity. The plaintiff sought to enjoin the defendant from entering his land, and the defendant attempted to justify on the ground of this way of necessity. Held, under the recording acts the plaintiff as a bona fide purchaser took …

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Taking Of Equitable Easements For Public Use, Edgar N. Durfee

Articles

The case of Flynn v. New York &c Railway Co., decided by the Court of Appeals of New York in April last, involves the right of an owner of land to which is appurtenant a so-called equitable easement, arising under a covenant restricting the use of other land, to compensation upon the taking of the servient land for a public use inconsistent with the restriction. A tract of land was laid out in accordance with a plan, and all, lots therein were sold and conveyed by deeds containing covenants, inter alia, that, "No building or structure for any business purpose …

Taxation Of Easements, Bradley M. Thompson

Articles

In the case of Lever v. Grant,1 the supreme court passed incidentally upon the effect of a tax deed on an easement appurtenant to the estate on which the delinquent taxes had been levied. From the facts in that case it appears that in 1884 the owner of a parcel of land in the city of Detroit, bounded on the west by Woodward avenue, platted the same. The plat shows a street on the north side extending from Woodward avenue east thirty feet wide, one-half the width of an ordinary street. This street was named Custer Avenue. The next year, …

The Corporation In The Street, Charles C. Dibble

Michigan Law Review

The modern street is not a simple roadway, but a complicated three-story structure in the use of which the general public, the city government, the abutting property owner and the licensed corporation are interested. Not often are streets so limited in capacity as the one in Frankfort, Kentucky, which was so narrow that the passage of a railroad train would have all but filled it, a condition which led the court to enjoin the construction of a track, though duly authorized. Generally there is room for all, and the use of the streets has been granted with the greatest liberality. …