Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Eliding Original Understanding In Cedar Point Nursery V. Hassid, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

Cedar Point Nursey v. Hassid is a triumph of the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. In holding that temporary entries to land are takings without regard to duration, impact, or the public interest, the Court fulfilled the decades-long ambitions of anti-regulatory advocates of private property. Progressive and conservative scholars agree that the decision runs roughshod over precedent. This essay focuses on a less obvious aspect of Cedar Point: its flagrant departure from original understanding. American law at the time of the founding recognized a robust right to enter private property. Trespass law did not even reach entries unless they …

Trade Transparency: A Call For Surfacing Unseen Deals, Kathleen Claussen

Articles

For many years, the executive branch has concluded foreign commercial agreements with trading partners pursuant to delegated authority from Congress. The deals govern the contours of a wide range of U.S. inbound and outbound trade: from food safety rules for imported products to procedures and specifications of exported goods, to name two. The problem is that often no one-apart from the executive branch negotiators- knows what these deals contain. A lack of transparency rules has inhibited the publication of and reporting to Congress of these unseen deals. Dozens if not hundreds of foreign commercial deals are unseen in two ways: …

Butler V. Gavek, 245 A.3d 750 (R.I. 2021), David Braga

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Frederick Douglass And The Hidden Power Of Recording Deeds, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

This Essay answers a single question: What led Frederick Douglass to accept an appointment as the D.C. Recorder of Deeds, especially at the height of his public service career? A possible answer, which is informed by the historical record and more contemporary accounts, is that Douglass accepted such an appointment for three reasons. The first reason is that the D.C. Recorder has been long recognized as an exemplar of fairness, perhaps due to its ministerial obligations, even when there could be no such expectation with respect to how Black folks are treated. The second reason is this office provided Douglass …

Trespass Plus: Ag-Gag And The Right To Exclude, Anthony B. Derron

Publications

The recent proliferation of agricultural anti-whistleblower legislation, or "ag-gag," has finally given the right to exclude the weight that property theory claims it deserves. By offering hefty fines and imprisonment to would-be agricultural trespassers, ag-gag is one of the few legal frameworks to treat the right to exclude seriously. Scholars and judges are taking notice. Given the significant environmental harms that agriculture causes – nearly one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions – and the conspicuous First Amendment concerns, it’s no wonder. But what commentators aren’t noticing is just how radical ag- gag is when compared to the legal regimes of …

Uncomfortable Truths About Sovereignty And Wealth, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bi Boat Basin Assocs. V. Sky Blue Pink, 242 A.3d 462 (R.I. 2020), Colten H. Erickson

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mondoux V. Vanghel, 243 A.3d 1039 (R.I. 2021), Samuel Weathers

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Epic Enters. V. 10 Brown & Howard Wharf Condo. Ass’N, 253 A.3d 383 (R.I. 2021), Matthew Lewicki

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Unifying Doctrine Of Subsurface Property Rights, Joseph Schremmer

Faculty Articles

This Article advances the “fair opportunity doctrine,” a theory of subsurface property rights that systematizes the case law in this confused area using formal legal reasoning. This theory offers a jurisprudential approach to analyzing private law that can then be applied to the field of subsurface property. This approach emphasizes the law’s role in providing ex ante guidance to members of a community in ordering their affairs and interactions with others and the importance of coherence in that function. On this basis, the “fair opportunity doctrine” improves substantially on the current state of subsurface property law and demonstrates the potential …

The Legal Relations Of ‘Private’ Forests: Making And Unmaking Private Forest Lands On Vancouver Island, Estair Van Wagner

All Papers

While the vast majority of forestlands in Canada are considered ‘Crown land’, there are key areas of private forestland. On private land the incidents of fee simple ownership mean the owner emerges as land use decision maker – the “agenda setter” for the land. Yet a richer set of legal relations exists in these forests.

Indigenous legal orders derived from an enduring relationship with the land and place also govern forestlands. Using the case of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway lands in British Columbia, this article explores the intersection between historical and contemporary human-forest relations upheld by Anglo-Canadian law and …

Navassa: Property, Sovereignty, And The Law Of The Territories, Joseph Blocher, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The United States acquired its first overseas territory—Navassa Island, near Haiti—by conceptualizing it as a kind of property to be owned, rather than a piece of sovereign territory to be governed. The story of Navassa shows how competing conceptions of property and sovereignty are an important and underappreciated part of the law of the territories—a story that continued fifty years later in the Insular Cases, which described Puerto Rico as “belonging to” but not “part of” the United States.

Contemporary scholars are drawn to the sovereignty framework and the public-law tools that come along with it: arguments about rights and …

Possessing Intangibles, João Marinotti

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The concept of possession is currently considered inapplicable to intangible assets, whether data, cryptocurrency, or NFTs. Under this view, intangible assets categorically fall outside the purview of property law’s foundational doctrines. Such sweeping conclusions stem from a misunderstanding of the role of possession in property law. This Article refutes the idea that possession constitutes—or even requires—physical control by distinguishing possession from another foundational concept, that of thinghood. It highlights possession’s unique purpose within the property process: conveying the status of in rem claims. In property law, the concept of possession conveys to third parties the allocation of property rights and …

Peeking Into The House Of Cards: Money Laundering, Luxury Real Estate, And The Necessity Of Data Verification For The Corporate Transparency Act’S Beneficial Ownership Registry, S. Alexandra Bieler

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

It is estimated that $800 billion to $2 trillion are laundered globally every year, funding the schemes of bad actors and terrorists alike. These astronomical sums are moved around the world without detection; this is in large part due to the ease with which anonymous shell companies, typically limited liability companies (LLCs), can be created, particularly in the United States. America is one of the most egregious enablers of this practice because most states require little to no information about the person ultimately controlling the entity, known as the “beneficial owner.” Working through an LLC, bad actors often turn to …

Restricting Funeral Expense Deductions, William A. Drennan

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

During the Middle Ages, the wealthy often requested burial in mass graves with their fellow mortals, as a sign of humility. But since the rise of the cult of the individual during the Renaissance, individual burial plots have been an expression of prestige, wealth, and social status for some. For example, Leona Helmsley, real estate baroness and “Queen of Mean,” dedicated $3 million upon her death for the care and maintenance of her 1300 square foot, $1.4 million mausoleum. Respectful disposition of the body is a hallmark of civilization and a common law requirement of estate administration, but an extravagant …

The Promise And Peril Of Paternalistic Approaches To Flood Risk, Alexander B. Lemann

University of Colorado Law Review

Our country's ever-growing exposure to flood risk has been the target of policy reform for decades. To many experts, it is clear that we must stop subsidizing flood-prone development and begin the process of moving people away from flood-prone areas. And yet, despite the seemingly obvious benefits of abandoning areas that will be permanently underwater in a generation, flood-prone living has been a difficult habit to kick.

Examining the problem against the background of the philosophical literature on paternalism helps show why. Paternalism- government intervention in people's choices for the good of those same people-has long been controversial. The insistence …

Non-Debt And Non-Bank Financing For Home Purchase: Promises And Risks, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores the phenomenon of the NDNBs in home purchase and finance that has gained a growing presence in the mortgage marketplace since the 2008 crisis. Part II offers a deeper discussion of the risk-prone practices leading to the 2008 housing crisis and the regulatory and industry responses for recovery. Parts III and IV describe the emerging new models of home purchase. Part IV explores some of the apparent and hidden risks in these transactions. Part VI concludes with suggestions for assessing and managing risks and for reforms.

Adaptive Rezoning For Social Equity, Affordability And Resilience, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, I will show how the legacies of the institutional barriers to housing still persist to deprive many of the predicates for economic thriving and personal flourishing and how existing zoning philosophy cannot be justified by the need to protect health and safety. Righting the inequities of the past and of the present will require dismantling some of the institutions, apparently legitimate and well-meaning, but operating devilishly to create and perpetuate hardship and exclusion. This will require laying bare the institutions to reveal their ignoble essence. We need a radical overhaul of the historic zoning regime from one …

Including Unmarried Women In The Homestead Act Of 1862, Hannah Haksgaard

Faculty Publications

When Congress passed the Homestead Act of 1862, it decided to distribute land to single, unmarried women. Most Congressional members who supported including unmarried women did so because women were a necessary part of empire building—women were expected to marry, bear children, and engage in building permanent communities. Few Congressional members cared about women’s equality or the progressive goals of the women’s rights movements, although some Congressional members thought women would be incapable of successfully homesteading. This Article presents the fascinating history of including unmarried women in the Homestead Act of 1862 by conducting an intensive study of the Act’s …

2021 Rhode Island Public Laws, Madison C. Picard

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Helping Self-Represented Litigants Isn’T Charity Work, It’S A Professional Obligation, Suzanne Harrington-Steppen, Eliza Vorenberg

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mohegan Women, The Mohegan Church, And The Lasting Of The Mohegan Nation, Bethany R. Berger, Chloe Scherpa

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

2021 Surveys Of Rhode Island Law

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Continued Impact Of Carcieri On The Restoration Of Tribal Homelands: In New England And Beyond, Bethany Sullivan, Jennifer Turner

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sabermetrics And Patents?: Open Source, Property Protections, And Alice V. Cls Bank, Keegan L. Rand

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

None

Escaping Circularity: The Fourth Amendment And Property Law, João Marinotti

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The Supreme Court’s “reasonable expectation of privacy” test under the Fourth Amendment has often been criticized as circular, and hence subjective and unpredictable. The Court is presumed to base its decisions on society’s expectations of privacy, while society’s expectations of privacy are themselves presumed to be based on the Court’s judgements. As a solution to this problem, property law has been repeatedly propounded as an allegedly independent, autonomous area of law from which the Supreme Court can glean reasonable expectations of privacy without falling back into tautological reasoning.

Such an approach presupposes that property law is not itself circular. If …

A Timeshare By Any Other Name: Fractional Homeownership And The Challenges And Effects Of Commodified Single-Family Homes, Christopher Markuson

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Property Prohibitions: Why Criminalizing Prostitution Violates Constitutional Guarantees, James J. Bernstein

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Firpta Repeal: The United States’ Post-Pandemic Economic Solution To Infrastructure Reform, Adam Mazin

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Cryptocurrency And Real Estate Transactions, Rachel Silverstein

Touro Law Review

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are all the rage right now and are beginning to make their ways into everyday transactions— including real estate transactions. This article discusses whether using cryptocurrencies to complete real estate transactions will become the norm in the near future. Cryptocurrency laws in general are few and far between, but laws surrounding cryptocurrency and real property are even more sparse. Recent case law involving cryptocurrency is a major focus of this article, along with background knowledge about cryptocurrency and the meaning of “money” as we know it today. The article concludes with a discussion about the unlikelihood …