Law Commons^™

A Cognitive Theory Of Fiduciary Relationships, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Is there anything special or distinctive about fiduciary relationships? Or is the term "fiduciary" nothing more than a label that obscures rather than clarifies? Recently, several law-and-economics scholars, building on the economic literature on agency costs, have argued that nothing categorically distinguishes fiduciary from nonfiduciary legal relationships. So-called fiduciary relationships, they argue, are nothing more or less than contractual relationships. This Essay hypothesizes that courts possess a fairly well-developed schema of the fiduciary role, but have not developed a comparable schema for ordinary contracting parties. The fiduciary role-schema often makes courts more likely to over-interpret behavior of fiduciaries than in …

Comparing The Two Legal Realisms—American And Scandinavian, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.

The Concept Of Property In Private And Constitutional Law: The Ideology Of The Scientific Turn In Legal Analysis, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

In recent academic writing on the general problem of constitutional protection of property under the takings clause and due process clauses, a mode of analysis has emerged that is evidently different from the conventional analysis of constitutional property claims. In general terms, this new mode is characterized by an effort to analyze claims on an openly teleological and systematic basis. To be sure, this mode is not exclusively of recent origin. But it is a discernible trend in the body of scholarship that discusses constitutional protection of property in the context of previously unfamiliar sorts of private economic interests. Most …

Cognitive Theory Of Fiduciary Relationships , Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.

The Application And Avoidance Of Foreign Law In The Law Of Conflicts: Variations On A Theme Of Alexander Nekam, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Lying at the heart of all conflicts theories is a recognition that the function of the law of conflicts is to ensure rational and just solutions to controversies involving foreign elements. A just and rational solution is one that somehow accommodates those elements. This does not mean that the foreign law must be applied but simply suggests that at least some attention should be paid to that law in the process of resolving disputes. From these relatively uncontroversial postulates, one moves to the more difficult problem of defining the role of foreign law in the conflicts setting. Attention in this …

Pluralism And Property, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.

Properties Of Community, Gregory S. Alexander, Eduardo M. Peñalver

Gregory S Alexander

Theories of property presuppose conceptions of community, and of the individual's relationship to community. In contrast to the dominant theories of community at work within most Anglo-American property theorizing, which view community obligations as fundamentally instrumental and contractual, we propose in this paper a theory that views the relationship between the individual and community as constitutive and substantive. Human beings' dependence on others to flourish imposes on political communities and their individual members a shared obligation to foster and contribute to the creation and maintenance of those structures necessary for that flourishing. This obligation in turn qualifies individual rights of …

Talking About Difference: Meanings And Metaphors Of Individuality, Gregory Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

This paper discusses the relationship between communitarianism and difference theory. Specifically, it focuses on the rhetorical practices that have created an apparent conflict between difference theory and communitarianism. My purpose is to suggest why this conflict dissolves when community and difference are understood as strategic rhetorics that share a common political vision.

The Conservatorship Model: A Modification, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Reform-minded probate lawyers have discussed the idea of ante-mortem probate for many years. Yet, owing to several seemingly unavoidable defects, it has never attracted widespread support and only recently has been implemented anywhere in the United States. In his article, Living Probate: The Conservatorship Model, Professor John Langbein has eliminated many of those defects and has made the idea much more feasible. In doing so, he has contributed to the development of simple, convenient, and efficient systems of probate. However, his proposal introduces new flaws that threaten the practical working of his procedural model. Basically, Langbein proposes that living probate …

Insight Problem Solving: A Critical Examination Of The Possibility Of Formal Theory, William H. Batchelder, Gregory E. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

This paper provides a critical examination of the current state and future possibility of formal cognitive theory for insight problem solving and its associated “aha!” experience. Insight problems are contrasted with move problems, which have been formally defined and studied extensively by cognitive psychologists since the pioneering work of Alan Newell and Herbert Simon. To facilitate our discussion, a number of classical brainteasers are presented along with their solutions and some conclusions derived from observing the behavior of many students trying to solve them. Some of these problems are interesting in their own right, and many of them have not …

Takings And The Post-Modern Dialectic Of Property, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.

The New Marriage Contract And The Limits Of Private Ordering, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Symposium: Law and the New American Family Held at Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington Apr. 4, 1997

Property As Propriety, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.

Governance Property, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.

Unborn Communities, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Do property owners owe obligations to members of future generations? Although the question can be reframed in rights-terms so that it faces rights-oriented theories of property, it seems to pose a greater challenge to those theories of property that directly focus on the obligations that property owners owe to others rather than (or, better, along with) the rights of owner. The challenge is compounded where such theories emphasize the relationships between individual property owners and the various communities to which they belong. Do those communities include members of future generations? This paper addresses these questions as they apply to a …

Reply: The Complex Core Of Property, Gregory Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.

The Concept Of Function And The Basis Of Regulatory Interests Under Functional Choice-Of-Law Theory: The Significance Of Benefit And The Insignificance Of Intention, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Recent literature and judicial opinions have recognized the need for control and consistency in choice of law. Although the formulation of choice-of-law theory in terms of the states' interests in the conflicting rules at issue has gained wide acceptance, the courts have been unable to agree upon criteria for determining when a state has a valid interest in dispute resolution. Moreover, courts frequently appear all too eager to use contemporary choice-of-law analysis to justify local regulation of multistate disputes despite insubstantial local relationships. The inconsistency and local bias both stem from the lack of a coherent theory for discerning the …

Freedom, Coercion, And The Law Of Servitudes, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

What do we want from a restatement of servitude law? Doctrinal simplification presents one obvious objective. Property teachers and their students commonly observe that the law of servitudes is a mess. However, doctrinal simplification surely does not present the only objective of the restatement. Developing a unified body of servitude doctrine, by itself, merely creates a sense of aesthetic coherence. Presumably the project aims at achieving more than just that. Law reformers generally seek to enhance the legal system's substantive coherence. At this level--developing a set of substantively coherent doctrinal practices--I am skeptical about the servitude restatement project.

A restatement …

Property's Ends: The Publicness Of Private Law Values, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Property theorists commonly suppose that property has as its ends certain private values, such as individual autonomy and personal security. This Essay contends that property’s real end is human flourishing, that is, living a life that is as fulfilling as possible. Human flourishing, although property’s ultimate end, is neither monistic nor simple. Rather, it is inclusive and comprises multiple values. Those values, the content of human flourishing, derives, at least in part, from an understanding of the sorts of beings we are―social and political. A consequence of this conception of the human condition is that the values that constitute human …

The Dead Hand And The Law Of Trusts In The Nineteenth Century, Gregory Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

This article discusses a basic paradox at the core of liberal property law. Individual freedom to dispose of consolidated bundles of rights cannot simultaneously be allowed and fully maintained. If the donor of a property interest tries to restrict the donee's freedom to dispose of that interest, the legal system, in deciding whether to enforce or void that restriction, must resolve whose freedom it will protect, that of the donor or that of the donee. Although post-realist American property lawyers acknowledge this conflict, at least nominally, it did not emerge in legal consciousness in so starkly visible a form until …

The Publicness Of Private Land Use Controls, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Real burdens, or land-use "servitudes" as they are called in the United States, are usually thought of as strictly private legal devices. Yet in many countries, including the United States, they serve public functions. They are used to constitute residential community associations. These institutions differ from traditional civil society institutions in that they are designed to provide public goods in much the same way as cities do. Generally, they allocate public goods more efficiently than do local governments, which are unable to respond to differences in preferences for various goods and services within given political boundaries. At the same time, …

The Dilution Of The Trust, Gregory Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Trust-like arrangements are appearing in civil law jurisdictions at an increasing rate. Two or three decades ago, such a development would have been unthinkable. But few, if any, of the new arrangements are true trusts, that is, trusts as the common lawyer would recognize them. These civilian arrangements are diluting the trust. For example, the Draft EU Directive on Protected Funds, which appeared in 2009, does not authorize the trust but rather what we might the “trust-lite.” This paper considers some reasons for the spread of these trust-like devices and discusses possible implications for common-law trusts.

Properties Of Property, Gregory Alexander, Hanoch Dagan

Gregory S Alexander

Broadly interdisciplinary, Properties of Property provides an overview of cutting-edge work from leading legal scholars as well as important non-legal scholars. The text is designed for an international audience, particularly teachers, scholars, and students throughout Europe, the British Commonwealth, and China. Properties of Property is perfectly suited for courses and seminars in other departments, from history to urban planning, both at the graduate and undergraduate level. It is a must for any law school library, even if no seminar on property theory is offered, because it appeals to law school students as well as scholars and graduate students interested in …

An Introduction To Property Theory, Gregory Alexander, Eduardo Peñalver

Gregory S Alexander

This book surveys the leading modern theories of property – Lockean, libertarian, utilitarian/law-and-economics, personhood, Kantian, and human flourishing – and then applies those theories to concrete contexts in which property issues have been especially controversial. These include redistribution, the right to exclude, regulatory takings, eminent domain, and intellectual property. The book highlights the Aristotelian human flourishing theory of property, providing the most comprehensive and accessible introduction to that theory to date. The book's goal is neither to cover every conceivable theory nor to discuss every possible facet of the theories covered. Instead, it aims to make the major property theories …

Property And Community, Gregory Alexander, Eduardo Peñalver

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.

Property, Michael Schill, Gregory Alexander, Jesse Dukeminier, James Krier

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.