Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

When Climate Change Forces Flight: Legal Duties In The Age Of Retreat, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

In the face of climate-driven disasters, government officials and individuals alike must decide whether to invest in climate-exposed areas or retreat. This Article analyzes emerging legal and policy issues associated with both climate retreat (when the government relocates people and infrastructure away from climate-exposed areas) and abandonment (when individuals leave climate-exposed areas, following natural disasters or otherwise). I argue that government-driven climate retreat must consider four overlapping legal duties, raising novel questions in an era of climate destabilization. First, does the government have an affirmative duty to rescue its citizens, and is this duty transformed by the government’s role in …

How Ip Ends, David Fagundes, Aaron Perzanowski

Faculty Articles

Real and personal property may last forever, but intellectual property (IP) ends. Despite the doctrinal complexity and practical significance of the mechanisms that terminate IP rights, scholarship has scarcely focused on them, and none has analyzed these doctrines as a unified field. As a result, the discourse about the ways IP ends remains impoverished, with courts, legislatures, and commentators offering imprecise and inconsistent formulations that obscure the rationales for these doctrines. This Article offers the first comprehensive taxonomy of IP’s terminal mechanisms, providing much-needed conceptual and definitional coherence. It then reveals the underappreciated policy leverage these mechanisms can deliver and …

The Patroon System Of New Netherland And Its Lasting Influence On Landlord-Tenant Law, Liam Edward Cronan

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Dead Hand And Frozen Lives: Embryonic Personhood And The Disruption Of Property Interests, Emma Miloglav

Fordham Law Review

Advances in assisted reproductive technology and the expansion of fetal personhood laws are colliding with a body of property doctrine built on assumptions about reproduction that no longer hold. In LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C., the Supreme Court of Alabama held that extrauterine embryos—fertilized and frozen in a laboratory—are “children” under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. LePage represents a dramatic extension of fetal personhood.

This shift carries profound consequences for trusts and estates. If frozen embryos are treated as legal persons, they may qualify as heirs under intestacy statutes and as beneficiaries of wills, …

Effects Of Expropriation Of Private Real Estate For Public Benefit In Saudi Law And Islamic Law, Hayat Mohammadali Hassan Nimir

Theses and Dissertations

The expropriation of private real estate for public benefit represents one of the most sensitive and complex legal issues, as it directly intersects with the protection of individual ownership rights while simultaneously addressing the demands of public interest and state development. This research provides a comprehensive analytical study of the legal framework governing expropriation in Saudi Arabia, examining both historical and contemporary legislation, while assessing its consistency with the objectives of Islamic Sharia, which grants strong protection to ownership rights but allows their restriction under strict conditions to serve genuine public needs.

The dissertation explores the theoretical foundations of property …

Editor's Note, Wyoming Law Review Editorial Board

Wyoming Law Review

No abstract provided.

Asset Forfeiture As An Animal Welfare Law: A Case Study On South Carolina's Bond-Or-Forfeit Statute, Morgan Mercer

Animal Law Review

This Comment examines South Carolina’s 2024 bond-or-forfeit statute (H.B. 3682) as a case study in the growing trend of extending existing legal frameworks to promote animal welfare. Traditionally, asset forfeiture treats animals purely as property subject to seizure. However, by shifting the costs of caring for seized animals from public agencies to the animals’ owners, H.B. 3682 embeds a concern for animal well-being into a framework historically focused on economic and property interests. This Comment argues that bond-or-forfeit statutes are part of a broader trend toward recognizing animals as sentient beings with welfare interests distinct from their owners’ property rights. …

Koziol Firearms, Inc. V. Marchand, 334 A.3d 439 (R.I. 2025)., Grace D. Guachione

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Watch Hill Fire Dist. V. Westerly Zoning Bd. Of Rev., 338 A.3d 326 (R.I. 2025)., Trent Huff

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Potenza V. Deutsche Bank Nat’L Trust Co., 338 A.3d 1050 (R.I. 2025)., Áine Guyer

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Runey V. Faring, 336 A.3d 16 (R.I. 2025)., Jessica Galego

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Personal Take: An Argument In Favor Of Adopting The Uniform Partition Of Heirs Property Act In Rhode Island, Isiah Dipina, Natasha Varyani

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Structures In Private Law And The Example Of Waste Law, Jill M. Fraley

Scholarly Articles

This Article proposes three criteria for when a private law mechanism performs a structural constitutional function: when it constrains present authority in the name of future stability, when it disperses enforcement to avoid centralized authority, and when it has structural entrenchment to avoid ordinary displacement. While many private law doctrines contain constitutional resonances or echo rights, the core of constitutional law is the power structure—a precondition for the protection of those rights. Constitutional structures have three key components: self-binding through time, separation and diffusion of power, and entrenchment beyond ordinary politics. For a private law doctrine to do more than …

The Flawed Criminalization Of Corner-Crossing In Wyoming, Ryan A. Semerad

Wyoming Law Review

No abstract provided.

Owning Data: Semantic Control As Inaccess To Information, Zvikomborero Chadambuka

FIU Law Review

This Article discusses the impacts of the introduction of a data ownership scheme on access to information. It does so with reference to the distinction between data, defined as some representation of information by a specific medium (the syntactic level), and the information itself (the semantic level). With respect to data, it then looks at the difference between standard property rights and intellectual property (IP) rights, similarly assessing impacts on access to information. Private control at the semantic level is bad policy as it effects particularly serious limitations, relative to private control at the syntactic level, on the availability of …

A Golden Opportunity For New York: Caveat Emptor And Revised Mckinney's 465, Grady Miller

NYLS Law Review

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For centuries, the doctrine of caveat emptor has governed New York residential real estate transactions, rewarding sellers who do not disclose material defects affecting the property, and punishing unsuspecting buyers who fail to exercise due diligence. To alleviate the doctrine’s inherent unfairness to buyers, the New York …

Titletown Madness: Title Insurance Through The Lens Of Tribal Jurisdiction And The Lasting Legacy Of Allotment, Nicholas Stamates

Marquette Law Review

American Property Law and Federal Indian Law have a conjoined history going back to Johnson v. MʻIntosh, 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823), where the Supreme Court ruled that private citizens could not purchase aboriginal title from Indians. Decades later, the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 resulted in non-Indian fee simple landowners purchasing what the Federal Government deemed “surplus” federal land in the un-allotted former Indian land, which is still part of the Reservation’s legal jurisdiction. An unintended consequence of this process, which resulted in a checkerboard pattern of land title in Indian Reservations across the country, has recently …

A Leaner Way To Lien Personal Property: The Case For Streamlining And Centralizing Judicial Lien Securitization And Perfection On Personal Property, Lucas L. Schneider

Marquette Law Review

The modern practice of law includes increasingly efficient and centralized manners to alert the world of secured interests in assets, yet securing and perfecting judgment liens in personal property remains entrenched in opaque, historic practices. This Article explores several states’ systems, along with real world scenarios, highlighting the problems with these practices, concluding in proposing a streamlined, efficient fix.

More Than Bad Neighbors: Data Centers And Minnesota's Newest Attempts To Regulate Them, Daria Mcgucken

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Rent Abatement In Wisconsin: Duty To Repair A Broken Statute, Brady Wirkes

Marquette Law Review

Wisconsin, like many states, has a rent abatement statute that authorizes tenants to withhold rent from their landlord. Despite the apparent strength of the rent abatement statute, tenants rarely utilize it. The statute, as it exists, fails to provide an adequate safety net for tenants. Even tenants with flawless abatement arguments are currently required to risk eviction to make a claim. However, the risk of eviction is merely the tip of the iceberg.

This Comment explores the complexities of a rent abatement claim in Wisconsin, highlighting the difficulties that tenants face trying to successfully withhold rent. Wisconsin’s rent abatement statute …

At The Intersection Of Property And Disaster Recovery, Jeanne Ortiz-Ortiz

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

When disaster strikes, communities rally to meet urgent, short-term needs—food, shelter, and medical care that keep people alive and safe in the immediate aftermath. For days, we see images of flooded streets, emergency shelters, and calls to support fundraising campaigns in the media cycle. Long-term recovery after a disaster often depends on something less visible: the ability of people, especially those experiencing economic insecurity, to rebuild or return to stable, functional homes.

The outcome of this largely depends on whether families can navigate and access assistance programs like those offered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Can you …

Women's Work And Wealth: Measuring The Impact Of Incremental Liberations, 1850-1870, Hannah Kelly

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Using a two-way fixed effects difference-in-difference model, this project analyzes data from the IPUMS Full Count census for 1850, 1860, and 1870 at a state level for 48 states. Four models assess the impact of property laws on women's real property holdings, labor force participation, household types, and real property values.

By quantifying the impact of various legal reforms on women's economic empowerment, this project fills a gap in the understanding of the intersection between law, society, and women's economic agency during a transformative period in pre-industrial American history. These impacts can implicate the effectiveness of legislative measures in advancing …

Pesos For Pesos And No One Feels At Home: Gentrification And Displacement In Mexico City, Sophia L. Castellanos

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis investigates how gentrification and displacement have affected Mexico City, providing historical context and reasoning behind current policies for digital nomads and tourists. It examines policies enacted in similar cities such as Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Venice, which face challenges from increased tourism and short-term rentals like Airbnb. The thesis also reviews these regulations, highlighting their successes and limitations, and offers recommendations for integrating some of these strategies into Mexico City’s 2024 Tourism Law. Additionally, it explores public innovation strategies that could promote collaborations between the government and communities rather than complete government control. Finally, the paper discusses the challenges …

The New Neccesity, Ezra Rosser

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, cities are free to criminalize homelessness. The 2024 case City of Grants Pass v. Johnson is the most important homelessness case in decades and was a significant blow to advocates for the unhoused. The conservative majority rejected the idea that city ordinances criminalizing sleeping in public amounted to cruel and unusual punishment insofar as they penalized status. There is no sidestepping the loss. But within the faint glow of the embers of the oral argument and of the decision itself, there is the possibility that a new understanding of necessity, supported by the same …

Romanist-Bourgeois Property And The Development Of The Modern Capitalist World System, Anna Di Robilant

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the role of Romanist-bourgeois property law in the development of the modern capitalist world system, focusing on how nineteenth-century jurists deliberately crafted and adapted Roman law-based property doctrines to address the evolving social relations of production in both Europe and its peripheries. Rather than viewing legal concepts as merely reflective of broader economic transformations, the author highlights the active role played by a professional class of jurists in shaping property law to legitimize and structure emergent capitalist class dynamics. The article critically engages with competing scholarly perspectives that either privilege market expansion or downplay class relations, arguing …

Sepulveda V. Buffum, 334 A.3d 98 (R.I. 2025)., Jack A. Burum

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Democratizing Restitution: Trust As An Equitable Approach To Competing Claims On Cultural Heritage Objects, Britta Redwood

Articles

As formerly colonized states began to win their independence in the mid-twentieth century, a growing chorus of voices called on museums in London, Paris, Berlin, and other European cities to return objects taken during the colonial period. Having largely ignored these requests until recently, museums throughout Europe and the United States have begun negotiating returns of these objects to their rightful owners. There is a growing recognition among Western cultural institutions that continuing to hold cultural heritage objects taken under conditions of coercion or violence is morally untenable. More recently, some scholars have argued for a human rights approach to …

Property Rights V. Taxpayer Rights: The Battle Over Tax Foreclosures, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

No abstract provided.

Challenging Agency Deregulation, Todd S. Aagaard

Faculty Publications

The administrative state is experiencing two seismic shifts. First, in recent years, the Supreme Court has issued a series of decisions that significantly curtailed the powers of administrative agencies. Second, President Donald Trump is using administrative agencies to aggressively deregulate in his second term. The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court’s recent precedent will facilitate the Trump Administration’s deregulatory agenda.

This Article argues the opposite. Instead of promoting agency deregulation, recent Supreme Court precedent restraining agency authority provides a potentially powerful basis for challenging agency deregulation as administrative overreach. Time and time again, the Court has taken agencies to …