Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Climate-Induced Human Displacement And Conservation Lands, Jessica Owley

Articles

As climate change leads to both internal displacement and mass migrations, we need not only new places for people to live but also new locations for infrastructure projects and other public needs. Some of the most attractive areas for these new land uses are currently unoccupied land, including land set aside for conservation. Numerous laws restrict the availability and possible uses of public conservation land. Individual agreements and property restrictions encumber private conservation land, varying in the ease with which the restrictions can be modified. For example, privately protected areas in the United States are often encumbered with perpetual conservation …

Mediation: Embedded Assumptions Of Whiteness?, Sharon Press, Ellen E. Deason

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Article began with the murder of George Floyd by an officer of the Minneapolis Police Department on May 25, 2020, after a convenience store employee reported that Floyd used a counterfeit $20 bill to purchase cigarettes. Seventeen minutes after the police arrived, Floyd was unconscious, pinned beneath them. The events were recorded by bystanders and the public was confronted with visual evidence of what has been happening to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) especially Black men-for centuries. It was dramatic testimony that law enforcement is based on a system that is the product of systemic racism and …

Classical Liberal Property And The Question Of Institutional Choice, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Richard Epstein’s property scholarship tracks his classical liberal theory of government. The classical liberal would permit state intervention to overcome collective-action problems but not to engage in redistribution of wealth. With respect to private law, Epstein harbors no clear preference for either the legislature or the courts as a source of limits on owners’ autonomy to overcome collective-action problems. With regard to public law, in contrast, Epstein would elevate the courts to a superior status relative to legislatures and would have courts enforce the classical liberal ideal as a matter of constitutional law. This article questions whether giving such power …

Negative-Value Property, Bruce R. Huber

Journal Articles

Ownership is commonly regarded as a powerful tool for environmental protection and an essential solution to the tragedy of the commons. But conventional property analysis downplays the possibility of negative-value property, a category which includes contaminated, depleted, or derelict sites. Owners have little incentive to retain or restore negative-value property and much incentive to alienate it. Although the law formally prohibits the abandonment of real property, avenues remain by which owners may functionally abandon negative-value property, as demonstrated recently by busts in certain coal and oil & gas markets. When negative-value property is abandoned, whether formally or functionally, the rehabilitation …

Standing To Sue In Land Use Litigation, Daniel R. Mandelker

Scholarship@WashULaw

Third party standing to sue is essential in land use litigation. Questionable land use decisions will not be taken to court unless a third party can sue, but third party standing is limited. Standing law is fragmented, obstinate, excessively restrictive, and split between judicial and statutory requirements. Reform is necessary so that third parties can have access to court to protect public values. This Article explains why third party standing should be expanded, and it includes a conceptual model that can guide reform. It discusses conflicting third party standing rules in the Supreme Court, including the dominant restrictive rule that …

Climate Changes Property: Disasters, Decommodification, And Retreat, Michael Pappas, Victor B. Flatt

Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Symposium On The Impact Of Indigenous Peoples On International Law, S. James Anaya, Antony Anghie

Publications

No abstract provided.

Embedded Property, Douglas C. Harris

All Faculty Publications

The institution of property arises in the tension between autonomy and community. It serves not simply to demarcate spaces of individual control and authority, but also to balance individual with collective interests. Private property and common property emphasize individual and collective interests, respectively, but the bifurcation may not be as stark as it appears. Condominium constructs separate titles to individual units, and these private interests are carefully mapped in a constituting plan that marks their boundaries. Democratic rights, usually conveyed in the form of shares in a condominium corporation, are the third element of ownership within condominium. The analysis reveals …

Diverse Holdings And Diversified Holdings: Uncertainty In Georgia’S Procedure For Seeking Judicial Review Of Rezoning Decisions, Laura E. Nelson

Georgia Law Review

To determine the proper procedure by which landowners
may seek judicial review of adverse decisions on rezoning
applications, Georgia courts must consider the nature of
rezoning decisions. For decades, the courts have held—with
little explanation—that rezoning decisions are legislative acts
subject to de novo review. Then, in the 2017 case Diversified
Holdings, LLP v. City of Suwanee, the Georgia Supreme
Court classified rezoning decisions as adjudicative acts that
may only be reviewed by writ of certiorari. Because the court
did not explicitly overturn the decades of precedent classifying
rezoning decisions as legislative acts, however, the nature of
rezoning decisions—and thus …

An Eye For An Eye And A Tooth For A Tooth: An Analysis Of Georgia’S Landlord Retaliation Law, Nicole Hammett

Georgia Law Review

Landlord retaliation laws protect tenants from landlords’
harmful retaliatory actions in response to tenants’ exercise of
their legal rights. In May 2019, Georgia joined the majority of
other states by enacting H.B. 346, an act establishing the
requirements for a prima-facie case of landlord retaliation.
Georgia’s eviction and poverty rates are higher than the
national average, and this law stands to address underlying
issues that drive those problems.
Other states’ landlord retaliation laws offer best practices in
addressing landlord retaliation. These include implementing
rent abatement protections and expanding the scope of
protected actions. Improving low-income individuals’ access to
counsel and …

Do Legal Origins Predict Legal Substance?, Anu Bradford, Yun-Chien Chang, Adam S. Chilton, Nuno Garoupa

Faculty Scholarship

There is a large body of research in economics and law suggesting that the legal origin of a country – that is, whether its legal regime is based on English common law or French, German, or Nordic civil law – profoundly impacts a range of outcomes. However, the exact relationship between legal origin and legal substance has been disputed in the literature and not fully explored with nuanced legal coding. We revisit this debate while leveraging novel cross-country data sets that provide detailed coding of two areas of laws: property and antitrust. We find that having shared legal origins strongly …

Fraudulent Transfer As A Tort, David G. Carlson

Articles

Fraudulent transfer law has historically been an in rem right of a creditor to property fraudulently received by a third party. In a minority of states, courts have treated fraudulent transfers as creating an in personam liability of the transferring debtor, the recipient, and any other third party who "conspired" with the transferor to achieve the transfer. This Article examines the wisdom of this modern trend and finds it wanting. The United States Supreme Court in 1861 was correct: fraudulent transfers are not wrongs. They merely create in rem rights.

Erisa Defined Benefit Plans Are Not "Trust" Worthy, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

No abstract provided.

Title Insurance: Protecting Property At What Price?, Stewart E. Sterk

Articles

The real property recording system is designed to protect purchasers and mortgagees against defects in title. Navigating that system is beyond the capacity of most laymen; historically, purchasers hired lawyers and other professionals to identify and eliminate title risks. Institutional lenders, however, sought more protection than a lawyer's opinion could provide, leading to the development of title insurance. Title insurance, unlike most other insurance, is focused not on risk spreading but on risk elimination. By examining title before issuing a policy, a title insurer minimizes the likelihood of a successful claim by an insured whose title turns out to be …

Property Transitions, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

Time plays a key role in this book. The last two chapters discussed two reasons why time matters to the life of property: over time, owners effect voluntary changes to property in order to carry out their life plans and the state imposes involuntary changes (from the individual owner’s perspective) in response to changing circumstances, shifting needs and wants, and revised public goals. For the state to function – and to remain justified on liberal principles – the government must have this ability to adjust ownership. However, state-initiated transitions to ownership – implemented through governments’ police and takings powers – …

The Compensation Constraint And The Scope Of The Takings Clause, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The idea I wish to explore in this Essay is whether the established methods for determining just compensation can shed light on the meaning of other issues that arise in litigation under the Takings Clause. Specifically, is it possible to “reverse engineer” the Takings Clause by reasoning from settled understandings about how to determine just compensation in order to reach certain conclusions about when the Clause applies, what interests in private property are covered by the Clause, and what does it mean to take such property?

The proposed exercise is positive or descriptive in nature rather than normative. The hypothesis …

Properties Of Intimacy, Emily J. Stolzenberg

Faculty Publications

Today, nearly nineteen million U.S. adults are cohabiting with an intimate partner. Yet family law continues to struggle with the question whether these unmarried partners should have relationship-based rights in one another’s property. Generally speaking, states answer “no.” Because cohabitants are not spouses, they’re treated like strangers. As a result, their property rights usually follow title, and richer partners tend to walk away with a large proportion of the property acquired during the relationship. This Article shows the “cohabitant problem” to be no anomaly, but rather the clearest manifestation of family law’s overarching structure. In marital property regimes as well …

Regaining Control Over The Climate Change Narrative: How To Stop Right-Wing Populism From Eroding Rule Of Law In The Climate Struggle In India, Binit Agrawal

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Innovative Regulatory And Financial Parameters For Advancing Carbon Capture And Storage Technologies, Zen Makuch, Slavina Georgieva & Behdeen Oraee-Mirzamani

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Textiles As A Source Of Microfiber Pollution And Potential Solutions, Lea M. Elston

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.