Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Rent Seeking And The Compensation Principle, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The reaction to Richard Epstein's Takings has been almost universally negative. Joseph Sax finds Epstein the "prisoner of an intellectual style so confining and of a philosophy so rigid that he has disabled himself from seeing problems as beyond the grasp of mere formalism." Thomas Grey concludes that "Takings belongs with the output of the constitutional lunatic fringe" and is "a travesty of constitutional scholarship." Thomas Ross, writing in this Law Review, says that, at least from an academic perspective, Takings is "a patent and howling failure." Epstein has provoked even the student editors of the Harvard Law Review …

Bargaining In The Shadow Of Eminent Domain: Valuing And Apportioning Condemnation Awards Between Landlord And Tenant, Victor P. Goldberg, Thomas W. Merrill, Daniel Unumb

Faculty Scholarship

Who has a constitutionally protected "property" interest when the government condemns land subject to a lease? Is it the landlord? The tenant? Or do both parties have property rights that entitle them to compensation? Further, how should the size of the total condemnation award be determined? Should we value the property rights of the landlord and the tenant separately and sum? Or should we value the entire parcel as if it were an undivided fee simple and apportion the award between the landlord and the tenant? If the condemnation award is based on the value of a fee simple and …

Time, Property Rights, And The Common Law, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The fee simple is often defined as an estate or interest of "potentially infinite duration." This way of speaking suggests that property rights are fixed and permanent – indeed, that they last forever. Similarly, property rights are regarded in classical liberal thought as sources of stability and security that foster individual autonomy and protect owners against the vicissitudes of life. This too suggests that property rights are not contingent upon a particular temporal context, but rather are impervious to the passage of time.

When we look at the common law, however, we quickly discover a much more complex relationship between …

Economics Of Public Use, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The fifth amendment to the United States Constitution, as well as most state constitutions, provides that private property shall not be taken "for public use" unless just compensation is paid. American courts have long construed this to mean that some showing of "publicness" is a condition precedent to a legitimate exercise of the power of eminent domain. Thus, when a proposed condemnation of property lacks the appropriate public quality, the taking is deemed to be unconstitutional and can be enjoined. In practice, however, most observers today think the public use limitation is a dead letter. Three recent decisions, upholding takings …

Trespass, Nuisance, And The Costs Of Determining Property Rights, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The right to exclude intrusions by others, we have it on high authority, is "one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property." Yet the right to exclude is not one right; it is itself a collection or "bundle" of rights. With respect to property in land, for example, the right to exclude depends to a large extent on whether the intrusion in question is subject to the common law of trespass or of nuisance. Generally speaking, when the intrusion is governed by trespass, then there is no exception for de minimis …

Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Adverse Possession, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The law of adverse possession tends to be regarded as a quiet backwater. Both judicial opinions and leading treatises treat the legal doctrine as settled. The theory underlying the doctrine, although routinely discussed in the opening weeks of first-year property courses, is only rarely aired in the law reviews any more. Indeed, the most frequently cited articles on adverse possession date from the 1930s and earlier. Perhaps most tellingly, adverse possession seems to have completely escaped the attention of the modem law and economics movement – almost a sure sign of obscurity in today's legal-academic world.

Nevertheless, two recent events …

To Praise The Estate Tax, Not To Bury It, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

For several decades, total revenues raised by estate and gift taxes have roughly equaled those raised by excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Yet no law journal has ever asked me to write on alcohol or tobacco excise taxes. The law firms of America do not routinely have divisions devoted to excise tax planning. We do not hear of the suffering of widows and orphans (or even of farmers and small businesses) because of alcohol and tobacco taxes. Philosophers and economists do not routinely debate the merits of such taxes. Perhaps most significantly, increases in such excise taxes do not …

Of "Liberty" And "Property", Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

After a century of experience, we are now thoroughly accustomed to viewing the fourteenth amendment as imposing upon the experimentation otherwise permitted in our fifty separate "laboratories" limitations that do not materially differ from those fastened upon the national government by the bill of rights. The history of this evolution is far too well known to justify rehearsing here even in the barest outline. But it bears noting that few, if any, observers believe that the language of the amendment has played a significant role in this historical evolution. Here, as elsewhere, "[b]ehind the words ... are postulates which limit …