Law Commons^™

The Fault Of Trespass, Avihay Dorfman, Assaf Jacob

Avihay Dorfman

The conventional wisdom has it that a property owner assumes virtually no responsibility for guiding others in fulfilling their duties not to trespass on the former's property. In other words, the entire risk of making an unauthorized use of the property in question rests upon the duty-holders. This view is best captured by the Keep-Off picture of property, according to which the content of the duty in question is that of excluding oneself from a thing that is not one's own. In this article, we argue that this view is mistaken. We advance conceptual, normative, and doctrinal arguments to show …