Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Mitigating The Discretion Disaster: How Changes In The Law Can Help Fema Effectuate Its Critical Mission, Paul G. Rando

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Adventures In Land Use Dispute Resolution: Utah's Innovative Program To Provide "Free" Legal Advice To Local Government, Neighbors, And Property Owners, Craig Call

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

Utah may have the nation’s most robust process allowing citizens to question local government land use decisions. This exists in the Office of the Property Rights Ombudsman (OPRO), created in 1997 and charged to assist in land use disputes in 2006. In three parts, this article divides an overview of the history of that office into two eras, evaluates one of the key functions of the current era—the preparation of advisory opinions (AOs), and suggests that Utah’s OPRO is a useful model for other states to consider. Most of this article focuses on the debates leading to ...

Examination Of Eviction Filings In Lancaster County, Nebraska, 2019–2021, Ryan Sullivan

College of Law, Faculty Publications

The study examined and analyzed eviction filings and proceedings in Nebraska, with a specific focus on Lancaster County—the home to the State’s capital, Lincoln. The primary objective of this study is to place eviction proceedings under a microscope to gain a better understanding of the volume of evictions in Nebraska, and whether the statutorily mandated processes are being followed. The study also attempts to capture the impact of certain external factors present during the period examined. Such factors include the COVID-19 pandemic and various eviction moratoria in place during 2020 and 2021, as well as the increased availability ...

Biotechnology Patent Law Top Ten Of 2020: Valeant Victorious, Falling Eagle, And Successful Slayback, Kevin E. Noonan, Andrew W. Torrance

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Article discusses the Top 10 BioTechnology Patent Cases of 2020. Suffice it to say that biotechnology patent law will continue to vigorously evolve, and we plan to continue our coverage of its evolution beyond the current trilogy of Biotechnology Patent Law Top Tens. As in previous years, we admit it was difficult to choose precisely ten top biotechnology patent law decisions. There are certainly others we did not include that warrant close attention for their reasonings, rules, and future implications. Nevertheless, both we and our readers can count, so we have done our best to select what we consider ...

Can You Dig It? Yes, You Can! But At What Cost?: A Proposal For The Protection Of Domestic Fossils On Private Land, Bridget Roddy

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Paleontological resources require similar protections to archaeological resources because the threat of looting, improper excavation, and market demand are analogous. Paleontological resources are responsible for informing much of scientists’ understanding of evolution and the history of the planet, just as cultural property helps to inform the evolution of humanity and culture. Once either object is removed from its original context, there is an immediate and invaluable loss of information that could have illuminated important information about the past. When either is removed from the environment in which they were created, a nonrenewable link to the past is lost.

Existing laws ...

Bright Stars Or Unreliable Compasses: Navigating Patent Definiteness During The Fourth Industrial Revolution, N. Thane Bauz

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Article traces the evolution of the definiteness requirement over the course of two centuries. From the time of inventions relating to flour mills, the definiteness requirement evolved into the consequence for drafting uninterpretable claims. Without considering the reasons for this evolution, the Supreme Court in its Nautilus decision returned the standard for assessing definiteness to its root form. Given the consequences are the loss of patent rights, this Article grapples with the Supreme Court’s decision during an era where complex and convergent technologies are more commonplace. The Article also analyzes empirical evidence six years before and six years ...

2019–2020 Colorado Oil And Gas Law Update, William D. Farrar

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Colorado courts and the state’s legislature were quite active in 2019 and 2020 on the oil and gas administrative law front. Namely, the Colorado General Assembly enacted changes to the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Act in response to the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision in Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission v. Martinez. While the Martinez case was not principally a substantive oil and gas case, the resulting fallout from the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision made sweeping changes to the state’s statutory laws. The decision will also result in major administrative law changes affecting the Colorado oil & gas ...

Appalachian Basin–Pennsylvania, West Virginia, And Ohio–Oil And Gas Law Developments, Ross H. Pifer, Chloe J. Marie

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This article addresses oil and gas case law developments that have occurred within the Appalachian Basin’s primary oil and gas producing states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio during 2021 by reviewing opinions issued by the highest appellate courts within each of these three states. The oil and gas law topics addressed by these state supreme courts during 2021 have ranged from those occurring upstream, such as leasing, to those occurring downstream, such as approval of a utility rate increase for the extension of a natural gas pipeline.

Louisiana, Keith B. Hall

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This article examines significant developments in Louisiana oil and gas law during 2021, beginning with developments arising from court cases, then legislation, and finally regulations.

Texas: Survey Of Selected 2021 Oil And Gas Cases And Statutes, William D. Farrar

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

The Texas Supreme Court was quite active in 2021, issuing several oil and gas opinions; however, two were quite controversial, drawing numerous amicus curie from industry groups, oil and gas attorneys, and academia. In Concho Resources, Inc. v Ellison, the court held that a subsequently executed, inconsistent instrument, even without words of grant, may divest a record mineral title. And, in Broadway National Bank v. Yates Energy Corp., the court held that prior title holders may divest a current record title holder of their title by executing a correction deed without the joinder of, or notice to, the present record ...

Perspective On Wildgrass Oil & Gas Committee V. Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission And The Embracing Of Associated Standing, Ralph A. Cantafio, Miles C. Nowak, Cody J. Watson

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

The ongoing litigations between the Wildgrass Oil & Gas Committee (“Wildgrass”) and, among others, the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (“COGCC”) serve as a microcosm of the political and legal horizons that define the microscope used to examine Colorado oil and gas development. This set of litigations began administratively with the application for permits before the COGCC and, over the passage of time, weaved its way through the District Court of the City and County of Denver (the “State District Court”), the United States District Court for the District of Colorado (the “Federal District Court”), the Colorado Court of Appeals (the ...

New Mexico, Sharon T. Shaheen

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Article examines significant developments in New Mexico oil and gas law.

Northern Rocky Mountain Region: Montana, Wyoming, And Idaho, Stephen R. Brown

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Article examines significant developments in oil and gas law for the Northern Rocky Mountain Region, including Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho.

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, And Tennessee, Brandt P. Hill, Hugh Gainer

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

There were no decisions by federal or state courts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, or Tennessee between fall 2020 and fall 2021 directly relevant to oil and gas companies or operations. However, there were several decisions that may nonetheless be of interest to the industry, including two opinions by the United States Supreme Court in water-rights cases. We discuss these opinions below.

Groundwater Laws And Regulations: Survey Of Sixteen U.S. States, Abigail Adams, Jack Beasley, Rebekah Bratcher, Justin Clas, Jackson Field, Ian Gaunt, Ashley Graves, Merrick Hayashi, Jenna Lusk, Matthew Maslanka, Erin Milliken, Connor Pabich, Margaret Reed, A. Wesley Remschel, Lauren Thomas, Ashley Wilde

EENRS Program Reports & Publications

This report is the second volume in a continuing project designed to explore and articulate the groundwater laws and regulations of all fifty U.S. states. This particular report presents surveys for sixteen states throughout the country. The first volume featured thirteen state surveys and can be found at: http://www.law.tamu.edu/usgroundwaterlaws.

The purpose of the project is to compile and present the groundwater laws and regulations of every state in the United States that could then be used in a series of comparisons of groundwater governance principles, strategies, issues, and challenges. Professor Gabriel Eckstein at Texas ...

The Commodification Of Public Land Records, Reid K. Weisbord, Stewart E. Sterk

Notre Dame Law Review

The United States deed recording system alters the “first in time, first in right” doctrine to enable good faith purchasers to record their deeds to protect themselves against prior unrecorded conveyances and to provide constructive notice of their interests to potential subsequent purchasers. Constructive notice, however, works only when land records are available for public inspection, a practice that had long proved uncontroversial. For centuries, deed archives were almost exclusively patronized by land-transacting parties because the difficulty and cost of title examination deterred nearly everyone else.

The modern information economy, however, propelled this staid corner of property law into a ...

Revoking Wills, David Horton

Notre Dame Law Review

No issue in inheritance law has sparked as much debate as the requirements for making a valid will. For centuries, Anglo-American courts have insisted that decedents obey rigid formalities, such as signing or acknowledging their wills before two witnesses. These rituals preserve proof of the testator’s wishes, reinforce the gravity of estate planning, prevent fraud and duress, and distinguish wills from other instruments. But they also have a dark side. In scores of cases, judges have cited minor errors during the execution process to invalidate documents that a decedent intended to be effective. Accordingly, generations of scholars have critiqued ...

Federal Courts And Takings Litigation, Ann Woolhandler, Julia D. Mahoney

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article first gives an overview of the role of the federal courts in takings claims over time, with a view to providing a more complete picture than that supplied by focusing either on the Lochner/New Deal-era dichotomy or on the advent of the 1871 Civil Rights Act (current § 1983). It traces the fairly robust role of the federal courts in protecting property under a nonconfiscation norm both before and during the Lochner era. It also points out that the legislative history of the 1871 Civil Rights Act does not support a firm conclusion that Congress intended takings claims ...

How Judicial Accounting Law Fails Occupying Cotenants, Phil Rich

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Few law students remember judicial accounting law from their property law course, and it’s hard to blame them. This little-discussed body of law is formulaic and rarely addressed by appellate courts. Judicial accounting law, however, should not be ignored. The law, which allocates equity to cotenants (or, more colloquially, co-owners) of residential property upon partition of that property, guides homeowners’ behavior and shifts wealth between them. This Note argues that state legislatures should reform judicial accounting law to better protect those cotenants living in their homes from partitions brought by cotenants living elsewhere.

The problem with judicial accounting law ...

The Law Of Employee Data: Privacy, Property, Governance, Matthew T. Bodie

Indiana Law Journal

The availability of data related to the employment relationship has ballooned into an unruly mass of performance metrics, personal characteristics, biometric recordings, and creative output. The law governing this collection of information has been awkwardly split between privacy regulations and intellectual property rights, with employees generally losing on both ends. This Article rejects a binary approach that either carves out private spaces ineffectually or renders data into isolated pieces of ownership. Instead, the law should implement a hybrid system that provides workers with continuing input and control without blocking efforts at joint production. In addition, employers should have fiduciary responsibilities ...