Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

The Phenomenon Of Substitution And The Statute Quia Emptores, Ronald B. Brown

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Joint Teaching With A Colleague, For Just A Week Or Two, Richard H. Seamon, Stephen A. Spitz

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Palazzolo V. Rhode Island: Takings, Investment-Backed Expectations, And Slander Of Title, Garrett Power

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Using The Pervasive Method Of Teaching Legal Ethics In A Property Course, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

The first-year introductory course in property law is about all that is left of the traditional black-box curriculum. It is where beginning law students cope with and despair of the arcana of English common law; where, with more detachment than, say, in the torts course, analysis of appellate opinions is what "thinking like a lawyer" means, with no more than peripheral and begrudging attention to modem legislation and administrative law; where legal reasoning is a stretching exercise and initiatory discipline. And, incidentally, surviving bravely the rude invasion of teachers of public law, it is where a teaching lawyer can point …

Property Law: 2001 Survey Of Florida Law, Ronald B. Brown, Joseph M. Grohman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Liberal Commons, Hanoch Dagan, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

Following the Civil War, black Americans began acquiring land in earnest; by 1920 almost one million black families owned farms. Since then, black rural landownership has dropped by more than 98% and continues in rapid decline – there are now fewer than 19,000 black-operated farms left in America. By contrast, white-operated farms dropped only by half, from about 5.5 million to 2.4 million. Commentators have offered as partial explanations the consolidation of inefficient small farms and intense racial discrimination in farm lending. However, even absent these factors, the unintended effects of old-fashioned American property law might have led to the …

What Happened To Property In Law And Economics?, Thomas W. Merrill, Henry E. Smith

Faculty Scholarship

Property has fallen out of fashion. Although people are as concerned as ever with acquiring and defending their material possessions, in the academic world there is little interest in understanding property. To some extent, this indifference reflects a more general skepticism about the value of conceptual analysis, as opposed to functional assessment of institutions. There is, however, a deeper reason for the indifference to property. It is a commonplace of academic discourse that property is simply a "bundle of rights," and that any distribution of rights and privileges among persons with respect to things can be dignified with the (almost …

The Property/Contract Interface, Thomas W. Merrill, Henry E. Smith

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the distinction between in personam contract rights and in rem property rights. It presents a functional explanation for why the legal system utilizes these two modalities of rights, grounded in the pattern of information costs associated with each modality. To test this theory, the Article examines four legal institutions that fall along the property/contract interface – bailments, landlord-tenant law, security interests, and trusts – in order to determine how the legal doctrine varies as the underlying situation shifts from in personam, to in rem, to certain relations intermediate between these poles. With respect to each institution, we …

Scope Of Due Diligence Investigation In Obtaining Title To Valuable Artwork, Marilyn E. Phelan

Seattle University Law Review

This Article will explore the concept of "due diligence investigation" for valuable art objects and the considerations that properly frame the scope of such an examination. The Article represents that because, as between a dispossessed owner and a good faith purchaser of artworks, equities are balanced in favor of the dispossessed owner, current law has imposed a higher standard of diligence on the purchaser. Thus, the Article will underscore the need for purchasers and collectors to conduct appropriate and comprehensive investigations into title of artworks they acquire or already possess and will demonstrate that a due diligence investigation is the …

Reasons Within Passions: Emotions And Intentions In Property Rights Bargaining, Peter H. Huang

Publications

This article discusses the role of emotions (or feelings or affects) in property rights bargaining. Real world people choose bargaining strategies based upon not only rational calculations, but also their gut feelings. This article considers the impact of anger and shame on bargaining over property rights and the Coase theorem. Such emotions may depend on beliefs (expectations or assessments) about whether particular strategic decisions should or will occur. Such beliefs can be viewed as attributions over the intentions of others.

Outline Of Epstein's Possession As The Root Of Title, And Other Matters - 1999, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

While it may be premature to expect a full working out of detail, it is surely time enough for some semblance of a unified theory of intellectual property law to have emerged. That it has not is due to some extent to the very evil which the existence of such a theory (or the beginnings of one) would prevent, namely, the errors that opinions are heir to. Recognizing common themes would help to isolate deviations, and thus help to clarify their nature; whether in a given context a deviation is justified could then be discussed on its own merits, wihout …

The Old Chestnut Explored: Thoughts About The Survival Of Casner's Cases And Text On Property Long Past Its Prime, Barry Brown

Seattle University Law Review

The pedagogy of the Casner text-now often imitated-assumes a fractional approach to private property. The Hohfeldian bundle of rights rational for allocation and justification of property interests did not begin with Casner or Leach, but the fact that the first edition of the book bearing the combined authors' names appeared in 1947 and has been in continuous use since that time is a testament to the insight of its writers and to its timelessness. That the structure and themes of the text have been followed in a host of casebooks is, no doubt, the sincerest form of flattery

Why Isn't This Man Smiling?, John W. Weaver

Seattle University Law Review

The books reviewed in this article represent five of the seventeen property casebooks in general circulation. These nine reviews of five books also demonstrate one of the continuing tensions for Property teachers. Property teachers not only face the usual problem of coverage versus depth (exacerbated by the cut in hours), but we also have the problem that Gertrude Stein posed for Oakland-that it sometimes seems as if there is no there.

Property In Context, Craig J. Albert

Seattle University Law Review

Now that Property has shrunk in most law schools to a single semester of three or four credit hours, Professors J. Gordon Hylton, David L. Callies, Daniel R. Mandelker, and my colleague, Paula A. Franzese, offer a new casebook, Property Law and the Public Interest to respond to the new environment.

How Do Law Students Really Learn? Problem-Solving, Modern Pragmatism, And Property Law, Craig Anthony Arnold

Seattle University Law Review

Edward Rabin and Roberta Kwall had student learning in mind when they wrote Fundamentals of Modern Real Property Law. Rabin and Kwall's casebook is an attractive and effective road map for students as they journey through a course (and a body of legal principles and issues) that typically intimidates many law students in virtually every law school.

Q: Why Is This Course Different From All Other Courses? A: Maybe It's Not, Louise A. Halper

Seattle University Law Review

The authors’ claim is to a unique recognition of (1) “the interplay of common law, statutory and constitutional regimes,”(2) “the growing significance of non-land forms of property,” (3) “the emergence of environmental values,” and (4) “the central importance of public policy analysis to resolution of complex social problems.” This is certainly an approach that can benefit the first-year Property teacher whose course is set in a semester that may also contain courses focusing on positive law, like Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, or Criminal Procedure, as mine does.

A Walk Through The Woods Of The Property Course With Dukeminier And Krier's Casebook On Property, Charles I. Nelson

Seattle University Law Review

This casebook is organized along three main themes even though it has five major parts. The first two parts seem to me to focus on relative rights in property. The third part discusses transfer of property interests and assurances of title and the fourth discusses regulation of land use by private and public means. The majority of this essay will look at those themes and how they play out in the casebook and in my course. In the latter part of the essay, I will discuss some of the things I find most engaging about the book and why I …

The Perfect Blend Of Methodology, Doctrine & Theory, Peter T. Wendel

Seattle University Law Review

In light of the market's overall approval of the casebook, what follows can only be described as but one professor's views on why the Dukeminier and Krier property book works so well for so many and on where it does not work as well as it could.

Review: The Essence Of Property Law, Vada Waters Lindsey

Seattle University Law Review

Part II of this essay will outline my overall approach to teaching Property and the inherent challenges of the subject. Part III sets out the topics covered in my property classes and the relevance of the “bundle of rights” concept. Part IV describes my use of the problem method in teaching Property and counters the purported disadvantages of applying that method. That part also demonstrates the practical use of the problem approach. Part V examines the evolutionary nature of property law and looks at three areas of law: landlord and tenant relationships, the law of servitudes, and future interests.

Review Of Jesse Dukeminier And James E. Krier, Property (4th Edition 1998), Andrew P. Morriss

Seattle University Law Review

In this review, I will concentrate on two perspectives on the book. I first taught Property in the spring 1998 semester (using the third edition of Dukeminier and Krier) and am (as I write this) about to begin my second year of teaching the course. I can thus give the perspective of a new teacher of the subject. In addition, I am an economist as well as a lawyer and am deeply fascinated by legal history. I try to bring both law and economics and historical perspectives to my teaching. I therefore offer an evaluation of the book with respect …

A Casebook For Teaching Teachers: Jesse Dukeminier And James E. Krier, Property, Daniel B. Bogart

Seattle University Law Review

This essay will evaluate the Dukeminier and Krier Property casebook from this perspective: just how good a text is it for teaching new law teachers? The answer, it seems to me, is that their book is very well suited to this goal. Given that I have used the Dukeminier and Krier casebook (D&K casebook) for nine years now, my answer should not surprise the reader. Indeed, I think it is this aspect of the book (and perhaps a general inclination of teachers not to fix what ain't broke) that accounts for the extraordinary loyalty that many professors give to this …

Making Something Out Of Nothing: The Law Of Takings And Phillips V. Washington Legal Foundation, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier

Faculty Scholarship

Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation held that interest on principal amounts deposited into IOLTA accounts is the property of the various clients who handed over the money but expressed no view as to whether the Texas IOLTA program worked a taking, or, if it did, whether any compensation was due. The debates among the justices about the meaning of private property, argued in terms of contextual and conceptual severance, are unlikely to prove fruitful. We elaborate a better approach in terms of the underlying purposes of just compensation. We conclude that efficiency and justice are best served by uncoupling matters …

Deterrence And Distribution In The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier

Faculty Scholarship

Supreme Court decisions over the last three-quarters of a century have turned the words of the Takings Clause into a secret code that only a momentary majority of the Court is able to understand. The Justices faithfully moor their opinions to the particular terms of the Fifth Amendment, but only by stretching the text beyond recognition. A better approach is to consider the purposes of the Takings Clause, efficiency and justice, and go anew from there. Such a method reveals that in some cases there are good reasons to require payment by the government when it regulates property, but not …

The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

If your house and fields are worth more separately, divide them; if you want to leave a ring to your child now and grandchild later, split the ownership in a trust. The American law of property encourages owners to subdivide resources freely. Hidden within the law, however, is a boundary principle that limits the right to subdivide private property into wasteful fragments. While people often create wealth when they break up and recombine property in novel ways, owners may make mistakes, or their self-interest may clash with social welfare. Property law responds with diverse doctrines that prevent and abolish excessive …

Property Law: 1998 Survey Of Florida Law, Ronald B. Brown, Joseph M. Grohman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Nexus Of Federal And State Law In Railroad Abandonments, Marc A. Sennewald

Vanderbilt Law Review

The United States Congress embarked on a new era in the regulation of interstate commerce when it created the Interstate Commerce Commission ("ICC") in 1887 to regulate railroad traffic.' A major purpose of the ICC regulatory framework, as amended by the Transportation Act of 1920, was to preempt actions by state and local authorities that prevented railroads from abandoning unprofitable lines. When Congress passed the Transportation Act, 252,588 miles of track criss-crossed the United States; by 1990 the number of rail- way miles had decreased by almost half.

Although the relative ease with which railroads abandoned unprofitable lines augmented their …

Protecting Property Rights With Strict Scrutiny: An Argument For The "Specifically And Uniquely Attributable" Standard , Daniel Williams Russo

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article analyzes three levels of scrutiny states have applied to regulatory takings cases. These include 'judicial deterrence", "rational nexus", and "specifically and uniquely attributable". The author argues that the first two standards are inefficient and concludes in favor of the "specifically and uniquely attributable" standard.

Compensation And The Interconnectedness Of Property, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Joseph Sax's scholarship on the Takings Clause combines the craft of a first-class lawyer with the passion of a visionary. The good lawyer that he is, Sax's scholarship reflects a deep understanding of Supreme Court case law, legal history, and the practical dimensions of various kinds of land use disputes. Yet his work on takings is not animated by any desire for mere doctrinal tidiness. It is driven by a distinctive vision – one in which the earth's resources are becoming increasingly interconnected and in which there is an increasing need for the government to resolve conflicts regarding the …

Property Law: 1997 Survey Of Florida Law, Ronald B. Brown, Joseph M. Grohman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Property Law: 1996 Survey Of Florida Law, Ronald B. Brown, Joseph M. Grohma

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.