Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Case Digest, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

ADMIRALTY JURISDICTION EXISTS IN CASES STEMMING FROM BOAT COLLISIONS ON NAVIGABLE WATERS REGARDLESS OF THE COMMERCIAL OR NONCOMMERCIAL NATURE OF THE VESSELS INVOLVED--Foremost Insurance Co. v. Richardson, 102 S. Ct. 2654 (1982).

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SHIPOWNER MAY ATTACH CHARACTER'S PROPERTY AS SECURITY FOR BREACH OF A CHARTER CONTAINING A FORUM SELECTION CLAUSE--Polar Shipping, Ltd. v. Oriental Shipping Corp., 680 F.2d 627 (9th Cir. 1982).

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WORKER EMPLOYED ABOARD AN OFFSHORE DRILLING PLATFORM MAY BRING A CLAIM UNDER MARITIME TORT LAW FOR WRONGFUL DISCHARGE--Roberie v. Gulf Oil Corp., No. 820013 (W.D. La.Aug. 4, 1982)

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THE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION ACT DOES NOT APPLY …

Case Digest, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Case Digest

1. Aliens' Rights

Alien is Ineligible for Naturalization when He is Relieved from Military Service and Waives All Rights under Immigration and Naturalization Laws

Executive Orders Requiring United States Claims Against Iranian Assets to be Submitted to Binding Arbitration are Valid Exercise of Presidential Powers

Injury or Intent to Injure is not an Essential Element of the Crime of Assault on a Foreign Official or an Internationally Protected Person

2. European Economic Community

Community Law Authorizes a Member State of the European Economic Community to Prescribe Penalties for a Contravention of the Prohibition Against Fishing Without Authorization in …

Land Trusts: An Alternative Method Of Preserving Open Space, Randee G. Fenner

Vanderbilt Law Review

In an effort to provide the background necessary to maximize the land trust's potential, this Article undertakes a three-part analysis, focusing on (1) the steps necessary to organize the land trust; (2) the techniques that may be used to accomplish the transfer of property to the land trust; and (3) the tax consequences associated with the land trust's conservation activities-consequences that may dictate the form that the transfer will take and upon which the success or failure of the preservation effort may hinge.

Open Space Taxation And State Constitutions, David A. Myers

Vanderbilt Law Review

this Article will first examine the theoretical function and form of state constitutions. This analysis can in turn be used to develop criteria for evaluating the content of these open space amendments. These criteria can then be used to suggest alternative methods of constitutional change that will allow state governments to respond most effectively to contemporary problems in the taxation of real property.

... This Article has been concerned with the various justifications for putting open space taxation provisions in state constitutions. It should be noted, however, that these amendments can have important negative effects on state constitutional law. Because …

The Present Status Of Compensation By Foreign States For The Taking Of Alien-Owned Property, Mark K. Neville, Jr.

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Perhaps no other exercise of the prerogatives of national sovereignty during the past two decades has proven so divisive to the community of nations or created quite as much uncertainty in international commerce as the taking of an alien investor's property by host States. Certainly these takings have contributed mightily to the intensity of the confrontation between the Third World and the developed nations. As a result of these confrontations the line has been clearly drawn between the industrialized nations and those developing countries of the Third World that subscribe to the precepts of the New International Economic Order, an …

Loosening The Grip Of The Dead Hand: Shall We Abolish Legal Future Interests In Land?, C. Dent Bostick

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article is concerned with a dilemma in the law of Future Interests. The dilemma stems from the needs and demands of a modern society to convey land cleanly and quickly and from the desire of property owners, especially landowners, to direct from the grave the on-going disposition of their property. This desire of landowners has always played a role in English and American property law. Much of the energy of the early judiciary was devoted to counter balancing the numerous ingenious arrangements devised by persons to effectuate continual control of their property.

Case Digest, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

CASE DIGEST

This Case Digest provides brief analyses of cases that represent current aspects of transnational law. The digest includes cases that apply established legal principles to new and different factual situations. The cases are grouped in topical categories, and references are given for further research.

THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF OBTAINING QUASI IN REM JURISDICTION BY MARITIME ATTACHMENT IS NOT LIMITED BY Shaffer v. Heitner

MAXIMUM LIMITS ON DISABILITY BENEFITS ARE NOT APPLICABLE TO DEATH BENEFITS PAYABLE UNDER THE LONGSHOREMEN'S AND HARBORWORKERS' COMPENSATION AcT

REFUSAL OF INS DISTRICT DIRECTOR TO GRANT NON-PRIORITY OR DEFERRED STATUS IS SUBJECT TO THE ARBITRARY AND …

The Act Of State Doctrine And Its Exceptions: An Introduction, A. B. Conant, Jr.

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The act of state doctrine poses a serious obstacle for plaintiffs seeking redress in United States courts for wrongful public acts by a recognized foreign sovereign within its own territory. Depending on the circumstances, however, various exceptions to the Doctrine may be invoked. This article is intended to be a brief introduction to the Doctrine and its exceptions and a survey of recent cases in which the Doctrine was construed by United States courts. The present inquiry into the nature and scope of the doctrine begins with the seminal case, "Underhill v. Hernandez"...

Almost all of the early case law …

Foreign Sovereign Immunity--The Status Of Legal Entities In Socialist Countries As Defendants Under The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act Of 1976, Jere G. Thompson

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) grants an "agency or instrumentality" of a foreign state substantially the same immunities that are provided to the state itself under the Act. An agency or instrumentality of a foreign state is defined in section 1603(b) of the FSIA. Section 1603(b) lists the following three criteria that must be met by an entity in order to qualify as an agency or instrumentality for sovereign immunity purposes: (1) the entity must be a legally independent person under the laws of the foreign state in which it was created; (2) the entity must be …

The Applicability Of Shaffer To The Quasi-In-Rem Attachment Of Foreigners' Assets, Steven H. Becker

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note proposes to examine the nature of United States contacts availed of by foreign defendants, and to determine the impact of Shaffer on the potential assertion of quasi-in-rem jurisdiction based on those contacts. It is instructive to consider quasi-in-rem jurisdiction's relation to four possible scenarios involving a foreign defendant: (1) the foreign defendant who owns real estate in this country; or (2) maintains deposits in United States banks; or (3) invests in securities that are registered locally; or (4) extends credit to United States companies or individuals on a regular basis. This Note ultimately concludes that in light of …

Property And Tort In Nuclear Law Today, Kazimierz Grzybowski, William Dobishinski

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Legal regimes regulating the exploitation of atomic energy follow three patterns. The pattern adopted in a particular country depends upon its social and governmental structure. In socialist states, like the Soviet Union, the state owns and uses nuclear materials and installations and is a monopolistic insurer against atomic hazards. In such states nuclear energy law is simplicity itself. It consists of instructions and regulations on the handling, transport and storage of nuclear materials, and the management of nuclear installations by administrative agencies. An important part of the regulations deals with the safety and health of the workers.

Countries in which …

Book Reviews, Paul L. Murphy, Richard E. Ellis

Vanderbilt Law Review

Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality By Richard Kluger

Reviewed by Paul L. Murphy

Richard Kluger is a novelist and editor who retired to devote his full time to an extensive study of the landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education.' Perceiving the Brown decision as a watershed with respect to America's willingness to confront the consequences of centuries of racial discrimination, Kluger set out to tell the entire story of the Brown decision. Kluger approaches the Brown case not as a study of the law and …

Eliminating Redlining By Judicial Action: Are Erasers Available?, Paul A. Renne

Vanderbilt Law Review

This paper will consider one practice--mortgage disinvestment, commonly referred to as "redlining"--which has worked incontravention to the declared policy of Congress by contributing to the destruction of the urban housing inventory and has been partly responsible for the failure to meet our housing goals. This paper will discuss the concept and effects of redlining, the relevant statutes and administrative regulations, and the use of class action litigation as a means of eliminating the practice. Before turning to this discussion, however, it is important to emphasize that eliminating the practice of redlining will prove no panacea to our urban problems. It …

The Great Section 38 Property Muddle, J. A. Cragwall, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Twelve full years have elapsed since section 38 property made its first appearance on the stage of tax law. In those twelve years, a complicated, confusing, ad hoc, and often inconsistent body of rulings and judicial decisions has grown up around the definitional regulation; words and phrases have acquired strange new meanings and connotations in the lush overgrowth of legal reasoning clinging to that regulation. The paradoxes in the regulation (such as that addressed in Weirick) and, more often, the ambiguities resulting from an almost universal failure by the regulations to define, instead of simply illustrate, its terms (such as …

The Protection Of Industrial Property Rights In The European Economic Community, Ronald L. Smallwood

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This study of European Economic Community (EEC) industrial property rights discusses trademarks, patents, and copyrights. The legal foundation for the protection of these industrial property rights in the EEC is derived from article 36 of the EEC Treaty, which expressly allows an exception to the prohibition of restrictions against the free movement of goods within the EEC when justified by the protection of industrial property, and article 222, which encompasses the protection of industrial property in the Member States. Although decisions of the Court of Justice on industrial property rights are infrequent, their ramifications are significant throughout the Community since …

The Private Use Of Public Power: The Private University And The Power Of Eminent Domain, Charles Fels, N. T. Adams, Richard Carmody, Margaret E. Clark, Randolph H. Lanier, James C. Smith, Robert M. White

Vanderbilt Law Review

The study which follows attempts to trace, in a necessarily limited fashion, the evolving use of eminent domain on behalf of private interest groups throughout the last century and a half of American legal history. Part One of the study traces the broadening scope of eminent domain in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on the direct use of eminent domain by private interest groups as a key element in the increasing breadth of the power. Part Two delineates the process whereby one modern private interest group-an informal aggregation of American colleges and universities-succeeded in acquiring …

Alternative Gains Tax Treatments Of Decedents' Appreciated Capital Assets, D. Allen Grumbine

Vanderbilt Law Review

The present treatment of appreciated assets under section 1014' of the Code permits a great deal of accrued appreciation to escape the income tax. While decedents pay a greater estate tax because asset appreciation swells their estates, they pay no gains tax at death on this accrued appreciation. Moreover, the recipients of the decedent's property generally take a stepped-up basis for the property equal to its fair market value at the time of death. A great deal of criticism has been leveled at this system, and numerous proposals have been made for remedying the situation: imposition of a capital gains …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Conflict of Laws--Torts--Lex Loci Delicti Is Proper Law When Parties Are Domiciled in Different Jurisdictions Unless Displacing That Law Advances Forum State's Substantive Law Purposes Without Impeding Interstate Relations or Predictability of Result

Plaintiff, an Ontario domiciliary, brought an action in New York for the wrongful death of her husband, also a domiciliary of Ontario,who was killed in a collision in that province' while a passenger in an automobile driven by defendant's intestate, a New York domiciliary. Defendant pleaded as an affirmative defense the Ontario guest statute, which restricts a guest's recovery to damages for injuries sustained only as a …

Licensing In The Eastern Bloc, Lajos Schmidt

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This article will discuss the legal problems faced by American enterprises desiring to license industrial property rights--principally patents, trademarks and know-how--in Eastern Europe. Licensing in seven countries--the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Bulgaria--will be examined. Of course, these countries form separate and independent legal and political jurisdictions; and even their cultural backgrounds differ. Any generalization about them must be taken in that context. Nonetheless, each of these countries is governed by similar political and economic principles--in particular, the principle of centralized economic planning. These common factors are reflected in common problems faced …

Exclusionary Zoning Practices: An Examination Of The Current Controversy, W. Harold Bigham, C. Dent Bostick

Vanderbilt Law Review

For the last 45 years the idea that local zoning administration is a highly desirable exercise of the state police power has become progressively more entrenched in urban thinking and planning. Although opponents of zoning have quarreled with details of administration or decried the failure of the Supreme Court to continuously oversee implementation of the zoning concept, they have assumed basic Euclidian zoning theory' to be beyond serious challenge. This assumption is no longer valid, for classic municipal zoning is on the firing line and its survival is by no means certain.

Special Project - Nashville Model Cities: A Case Study, Richard W. Creswell, Alan Gates, Paul M. Kurtz, Paul R. Regendorf, Samuel W. Bartholomew, Jr., Richard K. Greenstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

The future of the Model Cities program in Nashville is difficult to predict. As of this writing, the program is approaching the end of the first of five action years. The suit filed by the CCC in April 1971, is,more than a year later, still pending. It is, of course, possible that the program may eventually prove successful, but such a result is unlikely. Even if the CCC is replaced as the official citizen participation structure for the program, the ideological constituency from which the group derives its strength will remain. Furthermore, as the CDA continues to build an ad …

The Impact Of The Tax Reform Act Of 1969 On The Supply Of Adequate Housing, Kenneth J. Guido, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Hidden by the storm surrounding the more controversial changes in the Tax Reform Act of 1969 are subtle alterations in the tax structure that may significantly affect the rate and nature of real estate development. The Tax Reform Act amended provisions of the Internal Revenue Code directly applicable to real estate investments,' purposefully redesigning them in the hope of stimulating the construction and rehabilitation of rental housing, particularly low-income housing. The changes in the basic tax structure relative to real estate investments are an attempt to continue a national policy established in 1949, that of providing a "decent home and …

The Question Of Compensation: A Third World Perspective, Norman Girvan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The question of compensation for expropriated property takes us, in many respects, to the heart of the relationship between the developed capitalist countries and the Third World. On no other subject is the gulf between the two--in interests, perspectives and position--potentially so great, nor so pregnant with passionate and violent conflict. The rules of international law, the principles of international economics and the science of international politics can help clarify the issues involved and provide arguments for the claims of contending parties. But they cannot yield solutions which are "neutral" or are free of value judgments and philosophical assumptions which …

Legal And Policy Conflicts Between Deed Covenants And Subsequently Enacted Zoning Ordinances, Wade B. Perry, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

With increasing frequency, the real estate lawyer is confronted with the need to determine the effect of a newly enacted zoning ordinance upon the enforceability of prior restrictive covenants affecting property in the zoned area. If the enforceability of the covenant is cut off by the ordinance, the further question arises whether the city must compensate the landowner for interfering with his property rights. Existing rules provide largely unsatisfactory answers and conclusions reached do not always reflect the balancing of public against private interests fundamental to all zoning. Moreover, new types of zoning regulations have been found to generate conflicts …

Another And Hopefully Final Look At The Property--Personal Liberty Distinction Of Section 1343(3), John Lecornu

Vanderbilt Law Review

Recent years have witnessed increasing confusion and uncertainty over the proper scope of section 1343(3) of Title 28 of the United States Code, the jurisdictional counterpart of section 1983 of Title 42. Both provisions originated in the Civil Rights Act of 1871. Section 1983 creates a cause of action to redress the deprivation, under color of state law, of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution or laws. Section 1343(3) grants to the federal district courts original jurisdiction, irrespective of amount in controversy, over any civil action authorized by law that is commenced by any person: "To redress …

Extending Standing To Nonresidents--A Response To The Exclusionary Effects Of Zoning Fragmentation, Kent H. Mcmahan

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note is premised on the belief that courts must recognize the standing of adversely affected nonresidents to contest local zoning ordinances in order to insure appropriate consideration of the issues raised by exclusionary zoning practices in the nation's suburbs. To support this premise, the Note surveys the current fragmented status of zoning, the problems attributable to this fragmentation, and then on judicial attempts to resolve the problems. In addition, the Note analyzes the judicial approach to zoning fragmentation, with special scrutiny given to the law of standing as an obstacle to efficacious judicial review. Against this background, the Note …

"Fair Market Value," "Just Compensation," And The Constitution: A Critical View, W. Harold Bigham

Vanderbilt Law Review

It has become almost an article of faith that "fair market value"constitutes the only fair and workable measure of damages for a landowner whose real property has been taken for public use. The courts apply it woodenly;' the magic words are solemnly intoned to jurors, commissioners, and arbitrators. Even the learned scholars in the field give it at least implicit recognition. Moreover, it continues to flourish despite widespread public dissatisfaction with both the substantive test for damages and the procedures through which the land is obtained. The taking of private property for the federal interstate highway and urban renewal programs, …

Condominiums: Incorporation Of The Common Elements--A Proposal, John H. Bailery, Iii, Lawrence C. Ashby

Vanderbilt Law Review

Although the establishment of a common element corporation will provide the unit owners with some relief from major legal problems,close examination clearly reveals that such a proposal is not a ready cure for the condominium's many drawbacks. Among the proposal's chief benefits is the elimination of unlimited, joint and several liability for the unit owners. At the same time, responsibility for liability and casualty insurance coverage will be more clearly defined with the consequent elimination of double coverage. A variety of procedural questions will also be resolved since the corporation will be directly responsible for the common areas and facilities …

Non-Discrimination In The Sale Or Rental Of Real Property, Edward W. Brooke, T. A. Smedley, Arthur Kinoy, Sam J. Ervin, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The final version of the Fair Housing title anticipates a more active role for the federal government in the areas not presently covered by state or prior federal law. There is a central distinction between the protection afforded by the Act and the Jones decision. Where the latter recognizes the right of citizens to have their rights adjudicated, the former recognizes that not every victim of discrimination is willing or can afford to undergo the difficulty and expense of private litigation. The Fair Housing Law therefore provides for certain types of federal initiative to guarantee those rights. At the same …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Corporations--Equity--Specific Performance of Stock Option Granted Because of Tax Advantage Feature of Option

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Property--Landlord-Tenant--Rabbinical Court Establishes Far-Reaching Standard of Landlords' Obligations to Tenants

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Taxation--Federal Estate Taxation--Under Treasury Regulation Section 20.2031-8(b), Value of Shares in Mutual Funds Is Public Offering Price on Date of Death Rather Than Redemption Price

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Taxation--Mineral Rights--Carried Interest Loses Deduction for Depletion, Depreciation, and Intangible Drilling Costs During Recoupment