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Post Frequency: 16.7/day Last Entry: February 08, 2010 at 17:11:52 Recent Entries: 635
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Martha's Vineyard Easements
Posted on February 08, 2010Thanks to Mary Sarah Bilder for pointing out this great story from the Boston Globe on a recent decision preserving easements on Martha's Vineyard (or perhaps as my Massachusettes relatives would pronounce it, Marthar's Vineyard). The story begins: Every Veterans...
Donald Campbell Guest Blogging
Posted on February 08, 2010I'm delighted that Donald Campbell, who is visiting at Mississippi College School of Law, will be guest blogging with us. Welcome, Donald! Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Ode to Centralia, Pennsylvania
Posted on February 06, 2010The Associated Press ran an interesting story yesterday about the final days of Centralia, Pennsylvania, which has rested for decades above an intense, underground coal fire. The federal government condemned the town in the 1980s and 1990s, but a hand...
Lawyering and Law's Limits
Posted on February 04, 2010One of the things I try to teach students is that the job of "lawyering" often requires knowing the practical limitations of the rules and theories we discuss. For example, it's one thing to know that the law gives certain...
Haar and Wolf on Land Use Planning and the Environment
Posted on February 03, 2010Charles Haar and Michael Wolf have a new edition of their casebook on land use. This version is called Land Use Planning and the Environment. Here is a description of the book from the Island Press' website: Throughout the casebook,...
Local Government Liability Under Federal Law at University of Florida
Posted on February 03, 2010The University of Florida's law school is hosting a symposium on "Local Government Liability Under Federal Law: Regulating the Sacred and the Profane? on Friday, February 12. It will be the Ninth Annual Richard E. Nelson Symposium. Presenters include Ashira...
Who Owns Meteorite, the Landlord or the Tenant?
Posted on February 03, 2010A meteorite crashes through the roof of a commercial office building. Who owns it, the landlord or the tenant? According to this story, it may be that the landlord has a better claim. However it turns out, it sure is...
Who Owns "Who Dat"?
Posted on February 03, 2010A controversy is brewing over the ownership of the phrase "Who Dat?", which is chanted by fans of the New Orleans Saints football franchise (shortened from the cheer "Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?"). In light of the...
Property in the Human Body and the Case of Henrietta Lacks
Posted on February 02, 2010It's been a while since we blogged about property in human body parts. There is an interesting story in today's Slate about the case of Henrietta Lacks, which has some strong connections to Moore v. Regents. The story is inspired...
"The age of suburbanization . . . is over"
Posted on February 02, 2010So says John K. McIlwain, Senior Resident Fellow and J. Ronald Terwilliger Chair for Housing at the Urban Land Institute. You can find a synopsis of his predictions for the American housing market on the Wall Street Journal's real estate...
Requiring Rainwater Mitigation in LA
Posted on February 01, 2010From an interesting story in the LA Times: A proposed law would require new homes, larger developments and some redevelopments in Los Angeles to capture and reuse runoff generated in rainstorms. The ordinance approved in January by the Department of....
Stevenson on IOLTA Takings Problems After Kelo
Posted on February 01, 2010Drury D. Stevenson (South Texas) has posted IOLTA Problems in the Post-Kelo World on SSRN. Here's the abstract: IOLTA programs are a very popular mechanism for funding legal services for the poor, and are now operating in every state. As...
Property Outlaws Event at Fordham
Posted on February 01, 2010From the good folks at my alma mater: The spring 2010 Natural Law Colloquium will take place on Thursday, February 4, at 6:00 pm in the McNally Amphitheatre of Fordham Law School. Our speakers will be Professor Eduardo Penalver (Cornell...
McLaughlin and Weeks on Conservation Easements and Charitable Trust Doctrine
Posted on January 30, 2010Nancy A. McLaughlin (Utah) and W. William Weeks (Indiana-Bloomington) have posted Hicks v. Dowd, Conservation Easements, and the Charitable Trust Doctrine: Setting the Record Straight on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This is the fourth in an exchange of articles published...
Nolon and Salkin on Land Use Law and Pedagogy
Posted on January 29, 2010John R. Nolon (Pace) and Patricia Salkin (Albany) have posted Practically Grounded: Convergence of Land Use Law Pedagogy and Best Practices on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The changing dynamics in the field of land use and sustainable community development law...
Dorfman on Private Ownership
Posted on January 29, 2010Avihay Dorfman (Tel Aviv) has posted Private Ownership on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The most powerful response to the growing skepticism about the intelligibility of the idea of private ownership has been cast in terms of owners? rights to the...
Babie on Climate Change and Property
Posted on January 28, 2010Paul T. Babie (University of Adelaide) has posted Climate Change and the Concept of Private Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This essay argues that the dominant liberal conception of private property, implemented and operating in legal systems worldwide, permits...
Tekle on Sex Offender Covenants
Posted on January 28, 2010Asmara M. Tekle (Thurgood Marshall) has posted Safe: Restrictive Covenants and the Next Wave of Sex Offender Legislation on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article examines the emerging phenomenon and implications of sex offender covenants, the latest wave of sex...
Meteorite Law?
Posted on January 28, 2010Talk about property law questions ripped from the headlines! The Washington Post has the latest on a dispute between the landlord of a physicians' office in Lorton and the physicians over the ownership of a meteorite that crashed into the...
Kelo, the Meaning of "Public Use," and Beyond
Posted on January 27, 2010A recent decision from the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania presents some interesting issues about the law of eminent domain. In Whittaker v. County of Lawrence, 2009 WL 4744392 (Dec. 7, 2009), the plaintiffs challenged...
Mike Leach, Texas Tech, and Property Interests
Posted on January 26, 2010As an ardent fan of college football, I have followed with some interest the events surrounding Mike Leach?s firing as the head football coach at Texas Tech University. Moreover, as a law teacher, I am always interested in ways to...
Atticus Finch: Friend or Foe?
Posted on January 25, 2010The year 2010 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird. Of course, this novel has been very influential both inside and outside the legal profession, and it was again the subject of headlines a few...
Green on Tort Liability to Trespassers
Posted on January 25, 2010Over at the TortsProf Blog, Mike Green (Wake Forest) has an interesting post on propertyowner liability to trespassers and the proposed language of the draft Restatement (Third) of Torts on the subject. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so....
Rizzolli on the Law & Economics of Building Encroachments
Posted on January 25, 2010The latest issue of the Review of Law & Economics has an article by Matteo Rizzolli (University of Milan - Bicocca) titled Building Encroachments. Here's the abstract: Property law usually addresses encroachments with ejectment. Building encroachments differ, however, as restoring...
Rosser on Reservation Resources
Posted on January 25, 2010Ezra Rosser (American U.) has posted Ahistorical Indians and Reservation Resources on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article is an in-depth exploration of the impacts of an Indian tribe deciding to pursue environmentally destructive forms of economic development...
Home Sales and Fraudulent Concealment
Posted on January 21, 2010I currently am teaching a brief unit on real estate transactions in my Property course, and tonight we are covering disclosure and fraudulent concealment. As luck would have it, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal discusses this exact...
Turnbull & Salvino on Eminent Domain and the Size of Government
Posted on January 20, 2010Geoffrey K. Turnbull (Georgia State - Economics ) and Robert F. Salvino (Coastal Carolina - Economics) recently published their article, "Do Broader Eminent Domain Powers Increase Government Size?" in the Review of Law & Economics. Here's the abstract: The 2005...
Mossoff on Epstein and Patent Conveyances
Posted on January 20, 2010Adam Mossoff (George Mason) has posted A Simple Conveyance Rule for Complex Innovation on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article, written for the Eighth Annual Legal Scholarship Symposium celebrating the work of Richard A. Epstein, assesses Epstein?s advocacy of a...
Houston Symposium on Climate Change, Water, and Adaptive Law
Posted on January 19, 2010The University of Houston Law Center and the Environmental & Energy Law & Policy Journal are pleased to announce a Symposium on Climate Change, Water, and Adaptive Law to be held on Friday, February 26, 2010, from 8:00 a.m. to...
Property, Government, and Florida's Amendment 4
Posted on January 19, 2010Spring semester begins this week at Stetson, where I am teaching both Real Property II and Local Government Law. In looking over my course materials for these classes, I was reminded of something that often comes up in my own...
Michael Kent Guest Blogging
Posted on January 19, 2010I'm pleased to announce that Michael Kent (John Marshall/Atlanta, visiting this year at Stetson) will be guest blogging here at PropertyProf. Michael writes on land use and takings issues, and shares my fascination with Lingle v. Chevron. Welcome! Ben Barros...
Bellemare on De Jure and De Facto Land Rights
Posted on January 18, 2010Marc F. Bellemare (Duke - Public Policy) has posted The Productivity Impacts of De Jure and De Facto Land Rights on SSRN. Here's the abstract: There is an important literature on the causal relationship between the quality of institutions and...
MacLeod on Suicide and Gifts Causa Mortis
Posted on January 18, 2010Adam MacLeod (Faulkner) has posted A Gift Worth Dying For?: Debating the Volitional Nature of Suicide in the Law of Personal Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article examines the debate in personal property law over the question whether...
Anderson on Lost Neighborhoods and Unincorporated Urban Areas
Posted on January 18, 2010Michelle Wilde Anderson (UC Berkeley) has posted Mapped Out of Local Democracy on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In the novel Sula, Toni Morrison describes a neighborhood known locally as the Bottom, where the black community lived. It was ?the hilly...
Mitchell, Malpezzi, and Green on Forced Sales
Posted on January 13, 2010Thomas W. Mitchell (Wisconsin), Stephen Malpezzi (Wisconsin) and Richard Green (USC) have posted Forced Sale Risk: Class, Race, and The 'Double Discount' on SSRN. Here's the abstract: What impact does a forced sale have upon a property owner's wealth? And...
Call For Proposals - Emory Transactional Law Conference
Posted on January 13, 2010Emory University School of Law?s Center for Transactional Law and Practice is delighted to announce its second biennial conference on the teaching of transactional law and skills, Transactional Education: What?s Next? The conference will be held at Emory Law on...
Property Rights and Avatar
Posted on January 12, 2010I haven't seen it yet, but apparently Avatar has some strong property/market economy themes. David Henderson has an interesting post on the subject. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Property Bloggers Wanted
Posted on January 11, 2010I'm seeking one or more people to join me as permanent bloggers here at PropertyProf. If you're interested, please e-mail me at propertyprof@gmail.com. No need to make a permanent commitment right away. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so....
Gonzaga Seeks Property Visitor
Posted on January 11, 2010Gonzaga University School of Law seeks applicants for one or more full-time visiting positions in Fall 2010 and Spring 2011. The visitorships could be for one or two semesters. Subject areas include Intellectual Property, Professional Responsibility, Property, and Constitutional Law...
Adams on Homeownership
Posted on January 11, 2010Kristen Adams (Stetson) has posted Homeownership: American Dream or Illusion of Empowerment? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In this Article, I endeavor to show that because Americans value homeownership so much ? in fact, more than we should ? we...
Smith on Institutions and Indirectness in Intellectual Property
Posted on January 11, 2010Henry E. Smith (Harvard) has posted Institutions and Indirectness in Intellectual Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Intellectual property rights are controversial because on first glance they present a disjunction between the purposes they serve and the mechanisms they employ...
Peck and Steadham on Land Description Errors
Posted on January 11, 2010John C. Peck and Christopher L. Steadham (Univ. of Kansas) have posted Land Description Errors: Recognition, Avoidance, and Consequences on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Legal descriptions of land are used in many legal documents, including contracts, deeds, mortgages, and others...
Nolon on Climate Change and Land Use
Posted on January 11, 2010John R. Nolon (Pace) has posted The Land Use Stabilization Wedge Strategy: Shifting Ground to Mitigate Climate Change on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article describes how local governments, through the clever application of existing land use techniques, can mitigate...
Claeys Comments on Parchomovsky and Stein's Reconceptualizing Trespass
Posted on January 05, 2010Eric Claeys (George Mason) has posted The Right to Exclude in the Shadow of the Cathedral: A Response to Parchomovsky and Stein on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This response comments on ?Reconceptualizing Trespass,? by Gideon Parchomovsky and Alex Stein...
Hills and Schliecher on the Costs of Noncumulative Zoning
Posted on January 05, 2010Rick Hills (NYU) and David Schleicher (George Mason) have posted The Steep Costs of Using Noncumulative Zoning to Preserve Land for Urban Manufacturing on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In cities around the country, huge swaths of property in desirable locations...
Financing Problem With Atlantic Yards?
Posted on December 21, 2009Amy Lavine of Albany Law's Government Law Center has uncovered an interesting issue regarding the bond financing for the Atlantic Yards project. The Atlantic Yards Report has a detailed post on the issue. Here's a taste: The issue was unearthed...
Selmi on Land Use Regulation by Contract
Posted on December 19, 2009Daniel P. Selmi (Loyola LA) has posted Land Use Regulation by Contract on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In recent years the use of contracts, known as development agreements, to establish land use regulations has grown rapidly. Both municipalities and development...
Smith on Institutions and Indirectness in Intellectual Property
Posted on December 18, 2009Henry E. Smith (Harvard) has posted Institutions and Indirectness in Intellectual Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Intellectual property rights are controversial because on first glance they present a disjunction between the purposes they serve and the mechanisms they employ...
Adams on Homeownership
Posted on December 18, 2009Kristen Adams (Stetson) has posted Homeownership: American Dream or Illusion of Empowerment? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In this Article, I endeavor to show that because Americans value homeownership so much ? in fact, more than we should ? we...
Lehavi on Fennell's Unbounded Home
Posted on December 17, 2009Amnon Lehavi (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah - Radzyner School of Law) has posted Is Law Unbounded? Property Rights and Control of Social Groupings on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This review essay follows up on a suggested model for resolving problems of...
Epstein on Heller's Gridlock Economy
Posted on December 17, 2009Richard A. Epstein (Chicago) has posted Heller's Gridlock Economy in Perspective: Why There is Too Little, Not Too Much, Private Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article critiques Michael Heller?s important contribution in the Gridlock Economy...
Hamilton on the Unconstitutionality of RLUIPA
Posted on December 16, 2009Marci A. Hamilton (Cardozo) has posted The Constitutional Limitations on Congress's Power Over Local Land Use: Why the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act is Unconstitutional on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The purpose of this Article is to bring...
Lavine on Berman v. Parker
Posted on December 16, 2009Amy Lavine (Albany Law School) has posted Urban Renewal and the Story of Berman v. Parker on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The Supreme Court?s 1954 decision in Berman v. Parker serves as the foundation for much of our modern eminent...
Eminent Domain at the Play Table
Posted on December 16, 2009Using eminent domain to take legos! With real due process problems. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Peñalver and Katyal's Property Outlaws
Posted on December 11, 2009Yale University has just published Property Outlaws, by Eduardo M. Peñalver (Cornell) and Sonia K. Katyal (Fordham). Here's the burb from the YUP website: Property Outlaws puts forth the intriguingly counterintuitive proposition that, in the case of both tangible and...
How Do You Value Damage to a Tree?
Posted on December 09, 2009Inquiring minds have wanted to know since Tiger Woods hit his neighbor's tree. Christopher Beam explains at Slate. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
New York Court Rejects Eminent Domain for Columbia Project
Posted on December 04, 2009An intermediate appellate court in New York has rejected the use of eminent domain for a project associated with Columbia University. The New York Times has a story on the case, and Ilya Somin comments at the VC. There seems...
New York City Bans Storefront Gates
Posted on December 03, 2009Just in time for those of you looking for an exam question on regulatory takings, comes this New York Times story on the New York City Council's regulation of storefront gates. But the ban on gates that completely block the...
Of Hotdog Stands and Beach Parties -- Oral Argument in Stop the Beach
Posted on December 02, 2009The Supreme Court heard oral argument this morning in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida DEP. If you are new to the case, this post summarizes what it at stake. My overall view of the case hasn't changed much after...
Press Stories on Stop the Beach
Posted on November 25, 2009Yesterday's Washington Post had a great story on the Stop the Beach Renourishiment case by Robert Barnes. The case was also discussed by Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog. Both made my Dean very happy. Ben Barros [Comments are...
NY Court of Appeals Decision in Atlantic Yards Case
Posted on November 25, 2009The New York Court of Appeals has issued its opinion in the Atlantic Yards case. Unsurprisingly, the court allowed the use of eminent domain to transfer private property to a private developer. Ilya Somin comments at the VC, and the...
Post-Argument Panel on Stop the Beach
Posted on November 23, 2009From Peter Byrne (Georgetown): When: Wednesday, December 2nd, 12:15 PM Where: Hart Auditorium, Georgetown University Law Center 600 New Jersey Ave., NW, Washington, DC Immediately after oral argument in the Supreme Court, hear advocates discuss Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc...
Lehavi on Takings and Taxings
Posted on November 18, 2009Amnon Lehavi (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah - Radzyner School of Law) has posted The Taking/Taxing Taxonomy on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Takings jurisprudence is engaged in a constant paradox. It is conventionally portrayed as chaotic and ?muddy,? and yet attempts by...
Testing Theory on Property Exams
Posted on November 13, 2009Does anyone offer a "pure" theoretical question on their property exam. This semester I assigned 88 pages out of Commodity and Propriety to force students to undertake careful reading in a different context other than cases. So we have weaved...
More on Pfizer's Pull Out From New London . . .
Posted on November 13, 2009From the New York Times, and at the Times' Room For Debate blog. Also, Tim Iglesias left this excellent comment to the last post on this subject: In all of the analysis and judgment cited concerning the failure of the...
Pfizer Pulls Out of New London
Posted on November 10, 2009Pfizer is closing its New London facility. The takings in Kelo v. New London seem more and more pointless every day. Various folks in the blogosphere comment: Will Baude, Ilya Somin, Jacob Sullum, Gideon Kanner. Ben Barros [Comments are held...
Petitioner's Reply Brief in Stop the Beach . . .
Posted on November 09, 2009is now available online. All of the briefs in the case, including amicus briefs, can be found here (scroll down). Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Vermont Takings Conference
Posted on November 09, 2009I'm back from the Regulatory Takings conference that was held at Vermont Law School last Friday. I had a great time and learned a lot. Thanks to John Echeverria and everyone at VLS for organizing the event. Ben Barros [Comments...
Akee on Property Institutions and Efficiency in Housing Markets
Posted on November 04, 2009The May issue of the Journal of Law and Economics has an article by Randall Akee (Tufts University) titled Checkerboards and Coase: The Effect of Property Institutions on Efficiency in Housing Markets (free download for subscribers only). Here's the abstract:...
Property Visitors Wanted
Posted on November 03, 2009The University of San Francisco and Gonzaga are both seeking property visitors for parts of the 2010-11 school year. Here's the info: USF: The University of San Francisco School of Law is seeking a visitor to teach Property and Trusts...
Salkin on Land Use Ethics
Posted on November 01, 2009Patricia Salkin (Albany) has posted 2009 Ethical Considerations in Land Use on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article is one in a series of annual updates on reported cases and opinions in the area of ethics and land use regulation,...
Saxer on Property and Speech
Posted on October 31, 2009Shelley Ross Saxer (Pepperdine) has posted A Property Rights View: Commentary on Property and Speech by Robert A. Sedler on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article, published as part of a Symposium on ?The Rehnquist Court and the First Amendment,?...
Tate on Assignability of Charitable Trust Enforcement Rights
Posted on October 31, 2009Joshua C. Tate (SMU) has posted Should Charitable Trust Enforcement Rights Be Assignable? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In recent years, scholars have given much attention to the problem of charitable trust enforcement. Departing from the common law, section 405(c)...
Rosser on Indians and Judicial Humility
Posted on October 30, 2009Ezra Rosser (American University) has posted Assumptions Regarding Indians and Judicial Humility: Thoughts from a Property Law Lens on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Negative assumptions regarding Indians can be found in the recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and...
Saxer on Eminent Domain and First Amendment Land Uses
Posted on October 30, 2009Shelley Ross Saxer (Pepperdine) has posted Eminent Domain Actions Targeting First Amendment Land Uses on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article explores constitutional and statutory limitations on land use regulations where First Amendment rights are implicated...
Bennett's Bibliography on Condos
Posted on October 29, 2009Donna S. Bennett (Northern Kentucky) has posted Condominium Homeownership: A Selected Annotated Bibliography of Legal Sources on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Following a brief historical sketch of the condominium concept, this bibliography focuses on the development and growth of condominium...
Tyler and Markell on Evaluating Land Use Procedures
Posted on October 01, 2009Tom Tyler (NYU/Dep't of Psychology) and David L. Markell (Florida State) have posted The Public Regulation of Land Use Decisions: Criteria for Evaluating Alternative Procedures on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In this article we argue for an empirical governance approach...
Stop the Beach Oral Arguments Set . . .
Posted on September 30, 2009for Wednesday, December 2. Respondents' merits briefs and supporting amicus briefs should be on-line soon; I will link to them as soon as they turn up. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in...
Salzberg on De Donis
Posted on September 30, 2009Kenneth Salzberg (Hamline) has posted De Donis on SSRN. Here's the abstract: For many hundreds of years, starting at least in the 12th Century, many owners of land granted the land to new owner 'and the heirs of his body'...
Nelson on Virtual Property and the Rule of Capture
Posted on September 29, 2009John William Nelson (Samford/East Anglia) has posted Fiber Optic Foxes: Virtual Objects and Virtual Worlds Through the Lens of Pierson V. Post and the Law of Capture on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Virtual worlds are more successfully blurring the lines...
Bronin on Solar Rights and Modern Lights
Posted on September 29, 2009Sara C. Bronin (U Conn) has posted two related articles on SSRN. The first is Solar Rights: The rights to access and to harness the rays of the sun - solar rights - are extremely valuable. These rights can determine...
Attention Junior PropertyProfs
Posted on September 29, 2009AALS Property Law Section Junior Scholars Works in Progess Call For Papers The AALS Property Law Section invites junior property scholars to submit works-in-progress for a junior scholars panel at the upcoming AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans. The panel...
Rule on Allocation of Wind Rights
Posted on September 28, 2009Troy A. Rule (Missouri) has posted A Downwind View of the Cathedral: Using Rule Four to Allocate Wind Rights on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The rapid pace of U.S. wind energy development is generating a growing number of conflicts over...
Land Use Prof Blog
Posted on September 28, 2009The Land Use Prof Blog has been re-launched with a new group of editors. Check it out! Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Serkin on Private Conservation Easements and Public Land
Posted on September 27, 2009Christopher Serkin (Brooklyn) has posted Entrenching Environmentalism: Private Conservation Easements Over Public Land on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This piece for the University of Chicago Law Review Symposium: Reassessing the State and Local Government Toolkit, examines how local governments can...
Roark on Fixtures
Posted on September 26, 2009Marc Lane Roark (La Verne) has posted Defining Fixtures in Law and Policy in the UCC on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article offers both a concession and a critique. The article concedes that the law of fixtures under the...
Lefcoe on Curbing Opportunistic TIF-Driven Economic Development
Posted on September 25, 2009George Lefcoe (USC) has posted After Kelo, Curbing Opportunistic TIF-Driven Economic Development: Forgoing Ineffectual Blight Tests; Empowering Property Owners and School Districts on SSRN. Here's the abstract: When economic development or urban redevelopment is funded by tax increment financing (TIF),...
Blumm on the Public Trust Doctrine
Posted on September 24, 2009Michael C. Blumm (Lewis & Clark) has posted The Public Trust Doctrine: A Twenty-First Century Concept on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article briefly surveys the evolution of the public trust doctrine in 19th and 20th century America and discusses...
Fincham on Museum Deaccession
Posted on September 24, 2009Derek Fincham (Loyola New Orleans) has posted Navigating the Deaccessioning Crisis on SSRN. Here's the abstract: A deaccession crisis confronts the American Museum community. Deaccession of art occurs when a museum decides to sell or dispose of a work of...
Rule on Solar Access Laws
Posted on September 23, 2009Troy A. Rule (Missouri) has posted Shadows on the Cathedral: Solar Access Laws in a Different Light on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Unprecedented growth in rooftop solar energy development is drawing increased attention to the issue of solar access. To...
Nelson on Virtual Property
Posted on September 23, 2009John William Nelson (Samford/East Anglia) has posted The Virtual Property Problem: What Property Rights in Virtual Resources Might Look Like, How They Might Work, and Why They are a Bad Idea on SSRN. Here's the abstract: ?Virtual property? is a...
Of Roosters and Pit Bulls
Posted on September 23, 2009Two articles caught my eye today, both on the topic of limiting animals in residential areas. The LA Times reports that the Los Angeles City Council passed a law yesterday that caps the number of roosters per parcel of private...
Nash and Stern on Property Frames
Posted on September 22, 2009Jonathan Remy Nash (Emory) and Stephanie Stern (Chicago-Kent) have posted Property Frames on SSRN. Here's the abstract: How can we most effectively weaken property rights? Property law confronts circumstances where owner?s excessive perceptions of their ownership rights impose social costs,...
Salzberg on Confusions of Title and Value in Property Law Legislation
Posted on September 22, 2009Kenneth Salzberg (Hamline) has posted Zombie Life Estates, Ghost Value Transfers, and Phantom Takings: Confusions of Title and Value in Property Law Legislation on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper addresses a number of problems in current legislation and regulations...
Merrill on Accession and Original Ownership
Posted on September 21, 2009Thomas W. Merrill (Yale) has posted Accession and Original Ownership on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Although first possession is generally assumed to be the dominant means of establishing original ownership of property, there is a second but less studied principle...
McLaughlin on Land Trusts and Biodiversity
Posted on September 21, 2009Nancy A. McLaughlin (Utah) has postedThe Role of Land Trusts in Biodiversity Conservation on Private Lands on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This short article explores the role land trusts and conservation easements can play in the protection of biodiversity on...
Humbach's Estates and Future Interests Tutorials
Posted on September 16, 2009From John A. Humbach at Pace: Free Online Tutorials: Estate System and Basic Future Interests for first year Property Many regard the estate system and basic future interests as intricate and tedious. Indeed, for many law students these subjects are....
Schliecher on The City as a Law and Economic Subject
Posted on September 16, 2009David Schleicher (George Mason) has posted The City as a Law and Economic Subject on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Local government law has fallen behind the times. Over the past two decades, economists have developed a deep understanding of 'agglomeration...
Treasury Relaxes CMBS Restructuring Rules
Posted on September 16, 2009In my previous post on the looming commercial real estate crisis, I promised to blog in more detail about Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS) loans. I had not planned to do so today, but the Treasury Department has made the subject...
De Soto Documentary and Blog Contest
Posted on September 15, 2009Over at Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok notes an upcoming PBS documentary featuring Hernando de Soto, whose ideas are of great interest to many PropertyProfs. Free To Choose Media is sponsoring a contest tied to the documentary for a blog post...
Dead Towns
Posted on September 15, 2009The NY Times had an interesting story on Treece, Kansas, where the residents are pushing to be bought out by the EPA. Both Treece and a neighboring town were highly poluted by the mining industry. The neighboring town of Picher,...
Food Policy is a Land Use Policy
Posted on September 15, 2009Michael Pollan, the author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," contributed an opinion piece to The New York Times this week that linked the federal government's subsidies of commodity crops to the health insurance debate. An excerpt: "[S]o far, food system reform...
Tracing the History of a Neighborhood
Posted on September 13, 2009I just finished a piece for the Indiana Historical Society magazine about the Brightwood neighborhood in Indianapolis and one family that called it home for over seventy years. The exercise of researching the history of the neighborhood has been time-consuming,...
Unclean Hands Defeat Equitable Reformation of Deed
Posted on September 11, 2009A recent case handed down in Indiana demonstrates that equitable property doctrines are still alive and well in the common law: Hardy v. Hardy, 910 N.E.2d 851 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009). Father owned 80 acres of farmland in Cass County,...
Lehavi on the Standards of Property
Posted on September 07, 2009Amnon Lehavi (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah - Radzyner School of Law) has posted The Standards of Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Much scholarly attention has been paid recently to the optimal design of legal norms as constituting either clear-cut ?rules?...
Sometimes Fences Make Bad Neighbors
Posted on September 07, 2009There was an interesting story in the New York Times a few days ago about a dispute between two neighboring landowners and the town of Westport, Connecticut over a stone wall. Albert and Susan Hancock built the wall in 2005...
The Looming Commercial Real Estate Crisis
Posted on September 04, 2009I would like to begin my blogging by setting up a discussion about the commercial real estate industry, the looming crisis, and what this all means for property law. In a nutshell, the problem is this: (1) Over the past...
Greetings PropertyProfs!
Posted on September 04, 2009Ben, thank you for the gracious introduction and the opportunity to blog with you! As Ben mentioned, I am in the AALS pool this year as an aspiring PropertyProf. Never fear, I will not bore you with my experiences in...
Guest Blogger Tanya Marsh
Posted on September 03, 2009I'm delighted that Tanya Marsh is going to be joining us for a guest stint. Tanya teaches at the Kelley School of Business at IU/Bloomington, and as an adjunct at IU School of Law in Indianapolis. Tanya also has a...
Nagle on Cell Phone Towers as Visual Pollution
Posted on September 02, 2009John Copeland Nagle (Notre Dame) has posted Cell Phone Towers as Visual Pollution on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Cell phone towers are just the most recent target of visual pollution complaints. The term visual pollution has been used by courts,...
Barnes on Property and Natural Resources
Posted on August 28, 2009Richard Alan Barnes (University of Hull) has posted Property Rights and Natural Resources on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The use of private property rights to regulate natural resources is a controversial topic because it touches upon two critical issues: the...
Stop the Beach Links
Posted on August 27, 2009For those interested in following the Stop the Beach judicial takings case, the Petitioner's merits brief, and a bunch of amicus briefs, are available online. I'll have more to say after the Respondents' brief is in. Also, there is a...
Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference
Posted on August 26, 2009This year's Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference will be held at William & Mary on October 16-17. This year's honoree is Richard Pipes. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Ruhl and Craig on Governance Institutions for Estuaries and Coasts
Posted on August 26, 2009J. B. Ruhl and Robin Kundis Craig (Florida State) have posted New Sustainable Governance Institutions for Estuaries and Coasts on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The central point of inquiry in this chapter - how to design sustainable governance institutions for...
Kent on Impact Fees as Takings
Posted on August 25, 2009Michael B. Kent Jr. (John Marshall/Atlanta) has posted Theoretical Tension and Doctrinal Discord: Analyzing Development Impact Fees as Takings on SSRN. Here's the abstract: One of the lingering questions about the law of regulatory takings concerns the proper scope and...
McLaughlin & Machlis on Conservation Easements
Posted on August 25, 2009Nancy A. McLaughlin (Utah) and Mark Benjamin Machlis have posted Protecting the Public Interest and Investment in Conservation: A Response to Professor Korngold's Critique of Conservation Easements on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Many who have questioned the use of conservation...
Fennell and Roin on Controlling Residential Stakes
Posted on August 20, 2009Lee Anne Fennell and Julie Roin (Chicago) have posted Controlling Residential Stakes on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Local communities often suffer when residents have too small a stake in their homes ? a point underscored by recent rashes of foreclosures...
Lavine on Transparency and Accountability in New York's Industrial Development Agencies
Posted on August 20, 2009Amy Lavine (Albany) has posted Getting Past the Prisoners' Dilemma: Transparency and Accountability Reforms to Improve New York's Industrial Development Agencies on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper discusses the pros and cons of New York's Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs),...
PropertyProf Wanted @ Indiana/Indianapolis
Posted on August 20, 2009INDIANA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW-INDIANAPOLIS invites applications from entry-level and experienced candidates for tenure-track and tenured appointments beginning in the 2010-2011 academic year. The law school seeks colleagues with distinguished academic records who are committed to excellence in teaching, scholarship,...
PropertyProf Wanted @ Drake
Posted on August 20, 2009DRAKE LAW SCHOOL seeks applications for a tenure-track position commencing in the 2010-11 academic year, pending final budget approval. We are interested in both entry-level and experienced candidates. Teaching needs tentatively include Property and related courses, but candidates with strong...
Mossoff on IP and the Administrative State
Posted on August 19, 2009Adam Mossoff (George Mason) has posted The Use and Abuse of IP at the Birth of the Administrative State on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Courts and commentators have long maintained that intellectual property law and the administrative state developed as...
PropertyProf Wanted @ Gonzaga
Posted on August 19, 2009Gonzaga University School of Law seeks applicants for two tenure-track positions. Areas of teaching need include, but are not limited to, Intellectual Property, Property, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Family Law, and Torts. Applicants should have an outstanding academic record, law...
Lee Fennell's The Unbounded Home
Posted on August 18, 2009Yale University Press has just released Lee Fennell's book The Unbounded Home. Here's the publisher's description: The Unbounded Home grapples with a core metropolitan reality -- that the value and meaning of a home extend beyond its property lines to...
Saxer on RLUIPA's Application to Building Codes and Aesthetic Regulation
Posted on August 18, 2009Shelley Ross Saxer (Pepperdine) has posted Assessing RLUIPA's Application to Building Codes and Aesthetic Land Use Regulation on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article presents the author?s argument that building codes and aesthetic or historical land use regulations should be...
Katz on Adverse Possession
Posted on August 18, 2009Larissa M. Katz (Queen's University Ontario) has posted The Moral Paradox of Adverse Possession: Sovereignty and Revolution in Property Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: On what grounds can we justify the transformation of squatters into owners? To understand the...
Call for Papers - 2010 AALS Property Section Mid-Year Meeting
Posted on August 18, 2009TO: Teachers and Members of the AALS Sections on Property, Land Use Planning, Natural Resources and Real Estate Transactions FROM: Planning Committee on 2010 Workshop on Property Law: What Do the Mortgage Crisis and the Global Warming Crisis Tell Us....
Marsh on Blackacre and Widgets: "Rethinking Commercial Real Estate Contract Remedies"
Posted on August 13, 2009Tanya D. Marsh of Indiana University's Kelley School of Business has just posted "Sometimes Blackacre is a Widget: Rethinking Commercial Real Estate Contract Remedies," on ssrn. Marsh's abstract is: This Article argues that the presumption that all land is unique,...
Ostrow on Telluride and Eminent Domain
Posted on August 13, 2009Ashira Ostrow (Hofstra) has posted Minority Interests, Majority Politics: A Comment on Richard Collins? 'Telluride?s Tale of Eminent Domain, Home Rule, and Retroactivity' on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In his article, Telluride?s Tale of Eminent Domain, Home Rule, and Retroactivity,...
Lefcoe on Restraining House Flipping
Posted on August 11, 2009George Lefcoe (University of Southern California) has posted How 'Spec' Condo and Tract Home Buyers Helped Sink Our Housing and Finance Markets: Should the Alienability of Their Interests Be Restrained by Law? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper begins...
Reiss on Ratings Agencies and the Subprime Crisis
Posted on August 11, 2009David J. Reiss (Brooklyn) has posted Rating Agencies: Facilitators of Predatory Lending in the Subprime Market on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This book chapter explores how the three largest rating agencies, Standard & Poor?s, Moody?s Investor Service and Fitch Ratings,...
The Latest on Hawaiian Grave Litigation
Posted on August 08, 2009From Carl Christensen comes word of a story from the Honolulu Star Bulletin, about a motion by the Kawaiaha'o Church's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Abigail Kawananakoa "for disturbing the remains of her ancestors, the family of Queen...
Fruehwald on A Biological Basis of Rights
Posted on August 06, 2009Edwin S. Fruehwald (Hofstra) has posted A Biological Basis of Rights on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Rights are an essential part of a modern legal system. This paper advocates rights based on a different kind of 'natural law,' rights which...
Maine Supreme Court on Adult Adoptions
Posted on August 03, 2009Terry Turnipseed (Syracuse) has passed on the news that the Maine Supreme Court recently ruled that an adult adoption of a same-sex partner was legitimate. Terry notes that "the dispute mostly surrounded a very large trust set up by one...
Poster Proposals for AALS Annual Meeting
Posted on August 03, 2009The AALS Property Section is soliciting proposals for poster presentations for the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Here's a memo from Jane La Barbera with the details: To: Law Teachers From: Jane M. La Barbera Re: Poster Presentation...
Reiss on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Posted on July 29, 2009David J. Reiss (Brooklyn Law School) has posted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Privatizing Profit and Socializing Loss on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This book chapter describes the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the ongoing financial crisis....
Finders Not Keepers in Lottery Ticket Case
Posted on July 28, 2009AOL News has an interesting story about a finding case in England where a couple who found a winning lottery ticket were forced to return the money (at least the portion they hadn't spent) to the original owner, who had...
Craig on Climate Change and Public Trust
Posted on July 23, 2009Robin Kundis Craig (Florida State) has posted Adapting to Climate Change: The Potential Role of State Common Law Public Trust Doctrines on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Climate change is already altering historical expectations regarding water supply and aquatic ecosystems...
Davis and Brophy on Family, Property, Will and Trust in the Antebellum South
Posted on July 21, 2009Stephen Duane Davis II (Law Clerk, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Alabama) and our own Alfred L. Brophy (UNC - Chapel Hill) have posted The Most Esteemed Act of My Life: Family, Property, Will, and Trust in the Antebellum...
Homeowners Association Bans Smoking in Housing Units
Posted on July 20, 2009From the Wisconsin Leader-Telegram: It's not just indoor public places in Eau Claire where lighting up is prohibited. Now residents of a south side, owner-occupied housing complex will have to snuff out smoking in their homes, the most recent sign...
Two Jugs of Tea and a Chicken
Posted on July 17, 2009My colleague Wes Oliver is hard at work on three different articles right now, and was just sharing his fuel for a late night writing session: two jugs of (caffeinated, iced) tea and a (rotisserie) chicken. I think that would...
Penalver on the Illusory Right to Abandon
Posted on July 16, 2009Eduardo M. Penalver (Cornell) has posted The Illusory Right to Abandon on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The common law of property supposedly empowers owners of chattels freely and unilaterally to abandon them by manifesting the clear intent to do so,...
Dagan on Exclusion and Inclusion in Property
Posted on July 16, 2009Hanoch Dagan (Tel Aviv) has posted Exclusion and Inclusion in Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Exclusion is in vogue in property discourse: the right to exclude is often considered property?s most defining feature. In this essay, I criticize exclusion-centrism...
Advanced Placement for Law Schools
Posted on July 13, 2009Legal education faces a quandary. On the one hand, law school costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time. The tuition that can easily leave students with over $100,000 in debt is the most obvious cost of...
Disclosure of Energy Star Data in Commercial Real Estate Transactions
Posted on July 09, 2009According to an alert by some folks at Greenberg Traurig's land development group, California will soon require the disclosure of energy efficiency data in non-residential real estate transactions: On January 1, 2010, owners of non-residential buildings in California will be...
Revive INS v. AP to Save Newspapers?
Posted on July 09, 2009From an Op-Ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "If the copyright law doesn't open the way for originators of news to stop the free-riding, newspapers will die," he said. "No exceptions." The Marburgers propose a change in federal law that...
RLUIPA and Eminent Domain
Posted on July 09, 2009Over at Prawfs, Nelson Tebbe has an interesting post on the impact of RLUIPA on takings of property owned by religious entities. The post is based on an article co-authored by Tebbe and Chris Serkin titled Condemning Religion: RLUIPA and...
Possession in Property Law and Theory
Posted on July 06, 2009I'm presently working on a paper on possession. What follows is my current thinking on the different roles that possession plays in property law and theory. Comments of any sort would be very welcome. The idea of possession plays three...
What?s At Stake in Stop the Beach Renourishment
Posted on July 01, 2009As I noted a couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court recently granted cert in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The cert petition presented three questions, but the case will likely center on the first:...
Property in Rain
Posted on June 30, 2009Yesterday's NY Times has a fun story about a change in Colorado law that now makes it permissible for owners to collect rain that falls on their property. A taste: For the first time since territorial days, rain will be...
Brown on the Race to Subprime
Posted on June 29, 2009Carol Necole Brown (UNC - Chapel Hill) has posted Intent and Empirics: Race to the Subprime on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The United States? history of racially discriminatory banking, housing, and property policies created a community of black Americans accustomed...
The Market in Human Eggs
Posted on June 29, 2009Over at The Faculty Lounge, Kim Krawiec has a great post on New York's recent decision to allow (and cap) payments for human eggs used in research. This should be of interest to those who follow property-in-the-body debates. Ben Barros...
Collins on Eminent Domain, Home Rule and Retroactivity
Posted on June 26, 2009Richard B. Collins (Colorado) has posted Telluride's Tale of Eminent Domain, Home Rule, and Retroactivity on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Telluride, Colorado, won an eminent domain battle with San Diego billionaire Neal Blue, but only after paying his price and...
Framing in First-Year Property
Posted on June 23, 2009I've been thinking about possession quite a bit lately, and this in turn has led me to think a bit about how we frame issues in the first-year property course. There are a number of issues where I (and I...
Katz on Abuse of Right
Posted on June 22, 2009Larissa M. Katz (Queen's University - Faculty of Law) has posted A Jurisdictional Principle of Abuse of Right on SSRN. Here's the abstract: A principle of abuse of right means that an owner?s reasons for action, and not just the...
Lavine and Salkin on Religious Exercise and Community Planning
Posted on June 22, 2009Amy Lavine and Patricia Salkin (Albany) have posted God and the Land: A Holy War Between Religious Exercise and Community Planning and Development on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article is a brief introduction to The Albany Government Law Review....
Ellickson on Federalism, Kelo, and Epstein
Posted on June 19, 2009Robert C. Ellickson (Yale) has posted Federalism and Kelo: A Question for Richard Epstein on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The irrepressible Richard Epstein has been one of the most provocative and wide-ranging of contemporary legal scholars. According to Epstein?s own...
Katz on Red Tape and Gridlock
Posted on June 19, 2009Larissa M. Katz (Queen's University - Faculty of Law) has posted Red Tape and Gridlock on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper concerns the role of property theory in explaining why so many people around the world control their assets...
A Statement of Progressive Property
Posted on June 17, 2009Gregory S. Alexander (Cornell); Eduardo M. Penalver (Cornell); Joseph William Singer (Harvard); and Laura Underkuffler (Cornell) have posted A Statement of Progressive Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: What would a progressive theory of property look like? Although such a...
Dana on Foreclosure and Fragmentation
Posted on June 17, 2009David A. Dana (Northwestern) has posted The Foreclosure Crisis and the Anti-Fragmentation Principle in State Property Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Secured credit in homes has been divided and over-divided and spun into so many separate interests that economically...
Supreme Court Grants Cert on Regulatory Takings Case
Posted on June 15, 2009The Supreme Court today granted cert in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection. (HT: Jonathan Adler at the VC). The Florida Supreme Court's decision is available here. Argh! My summer is already booked. I don't have...
Sotomayor and Property Rights
Posted on June 15, 2009Today's Times has an article on how property rights issues might come up in Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. The article focuses on the Second Circuit's opinion in Didden v. Port Chester. The opinion was unsigned, but Judge Sotomayor was on...
Pace Environmental Law Review Announces Goes to Peer-Review
Posted on June 13, 2009I just got this announcement, which will be of interest to readers who publish in topics related to environmental law: Established in 1982, PELR was one of the first scholarly environmental law journals. As of August 1, 2009, Pace Environmental...
Confusion Between American and International Takings Law
Posted on June 10, 2009I should probably write something more substantial about this at some point, but I've been talking with various people recently about the international law of expropriation and its relationship to U.S. takings law. There are a host of important differences,...
Cornell Law Review on Progressive Property
Posted on June 10, 2009The Cornell Law Review has a major symposium on "progressive property." It begins with a joint statement by Greg Alexander, Eduardo M. Penalver, Joseph William Singer, and Laura S. Underkuffler. Then follow articles on The Social-Obligation Norm in American Property...
Department of Misleading Headlines
Posted on June 08, 2009Consider the following headline and lede: U.S. Gov't Backs Off Seizure Plan, Says Flight 93 Landowners 'Will Be Treated Fairly' SOMERSET, Pa. -- The U.S. government will not use eminent domain to seize people's land for a permanent Flight 93...
More on Conwell v. Grey Loon
Posted on May 30, 2009Thanks Ben, for asking me to share my thoughts on Conwell v. Grey Loon Outdoor Marketing Group, Inc. While Eugene Volokh describes it as ?not the sexy sort of cyberlaw, I get tired of teaching ?sexy? cases dealing with Playboy...
New Case on Property Rights in Web Sites
Posted on May 28, 2009Eugene Volokh notes an interesting new case about property rights in web sites, Conwell v. Gray Loon Outdoor Marketing Group, Inc. The opinion is available here. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in...
Call for Papers: Journal of Law & Public Policy
Posted on May 26, 2009From the JLPP at Florida: The Journal of Law & Public Policy at the University of Florida Levin College of Law is currently accepting submissions for its real estate law issue. This issue will be published in December 2009 and...
In Memoriam - John Cribbett (1918-2009)
Posted on May 26, 2009Leading property scholar John Cribbett has died. The University of Illinois has a memorial notice. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Bertacchini, De Mot, and Depoorter on Commons, Anticommons and Semicommons
Posted on May 26, 2009The new Review of Law & Economics has an article by Enrico Bertacchini (University of Torino), Jef P.B. De Mot (University of Ghent) and Ben Depoorter (Miami) called Never Two Without Three: Commons, Anticommons and Semicommons. Here's the abstract: A...
The Poet of Property
Posted on May 23, 2009We've spoken before about property poetry--about poetry of a meadow, about a poem for Virginia's Natural Bridge by John Thompson, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, and about William Cullen Bryant's Ages. Now I see that the New York Times...
Property Regulation in Bryn Mawr
Posted on May 23, 2009For those who are interested in popular conceptions of what it means to "own property," there's a robust discussion in the comments to this Philadelphia Inquirer story about what will happen with a mansion in Bryn Mawr. Can the (unknown)...
The Advantages of Take-Home Exams
Posted on May 22, 2009In my first-year Property class, I always give closed-book, in-class exams. In part, this is because of the nature of the Property class -- it is an introductory survey, and I am testing on the students' understanding of basic material....
Berger on Lessons Learned From Measure 37
Posted on May 22, 2009Bethany Berger (U. Conn.) has posted What Owners Want and Governments Do - Evidence from the Oregon Experiment on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In 2004, Oregonians approved ballot Measure 37 by 61% to 39%. The measure answered the calls of...
The Intersection of Federal Law and Homeowners Association Regulations
Posted on May 21, 2009According to fox news, "U.S. Rep. John Boccieri introduced a bill Thursday that would ban neighborhood or homeowners associations from restricting the flying of service flags." The full story is here. Al Brophy
Promotion of American Homeownership
Posted on May 20, 2009At the City Journal, Steven Malanga has an excellent story on the history of government promotion of homeownership in America. A taste: In December, the New York Times published a 5,100-word article charging that the Bush administration?s housing policies had...
Lueck, Tennyson, and Geddes on Married Women's Property Acts
Posted on May 19, 2009Dean Lueck (Arizona), Sharon L. Tennyson (Cornell), and Rick Geddes (Cornell) have posted Determination of the Dates of Passage of the Married Women's Property Acts and Earnings Acts on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The purpose of this document is to...
Craig on Western Public Trust Doctrines
Posted on May 19, 2009Robin Kundis Craig (Florida State) has posted A Comparative Guide to the Western States' Public Trust Doctrines: Public Values, Private Rights, and the Evolution Toward an Ecological Public Trust. Here's the abstract: This companion article to the Fall 2007 A...
Save the Date and Call For Papers -- First Meeting of the Association for Law, Property, and Society (ALPS)
Posted on May 14, 2009Robin Paul Malloy (Syracuse) is organizing a new organization for property scholars, the Association for Law, Property, and Society (ALPS). Here is the conference announcement and call for papers: The first ALPS annual meeting will be held March 5-6, 2010,...
Havard on Mt. Laurel and Land Banking
Posted on May 14, 2009Cassandra Havard (Baltimore) has posted Public Land Banking and Mount Laurel II - Can There Be a Symbiotic Relationship? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The story behind the litigation that produced two decisions in Southern Burlington County NAACP v. Township...
Merriam and Salkin on Sex Offender Residency Restrictions
Posted on May 13, 2009Dwight H. Merriam (Robinson & Cole, LLP) and Patricia Salkin (Albany) have posted Residency Restrictions for Convicted Sex Offenders: A Popular Approach on Questionnable Footing on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Municipalities across the country are adopting residency restrictions prohibiting convicted...
Munzer and Raustiala on IP in Traditional Knowledge
Posted on May 13, 2009Stephen R. Munzer and Kal Raustiala (UCLA) have posted The Uneasy Case for Intellectual Property Rights in Traditional Knowledge on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Should traditional knowledge - -the understanding or skill possessed by indigenous peoples pertaining to their culture...
Shackelford on DeSoto and Property Rights Formalization
Posted on May 12, 2009Scott Shackelford (Stanford) has posted The Promise and Peril of Property Rights Formalization on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Free trade, free markets, and international investment are the paths to prosperity, but despite widespread adoption of these staples of the Washington...
National Park Service To Use Eminent Domain For Flight 93 Memorial
Posted on May 08, 2009The AP reports that the National Park Service is going to use eminent domain to take land for the Flight 93 Memorial: In a statement obtained by The Associated Press, the park service said it had teamed up with a...
Van Erp on European Property Law
Posted on May 07, 2009Sjef J. H. M. Van Erp (University of Maastricht) has posted From 'Classical' to Modern European Property Law? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In this paper I will examine some fundamental aspects of European property law. Do European property law...
Davidson to HUD
Posted on May 05, 2009Nestor Davidson (Colorado), an occasional guest here and an all-around awesome guy, has accepted a senior legal position at the U.S. Dep't of Housing and Urban Development. Here's Colorado's press release: Associate Professor Nestor Davidson has accepted an appointment as...
Restricting Use of Property From Beyond the Grave
Posted on May 05, 2009The NY Times has an interesting article on the problem of how to deal with restricted gifts to charities as times change. The story in Trinity?s case is a common one for these rifts. An economics professor (whom I don?t...
RIP 2008-2009
Posted on May 03, 2009Another school-year bites the dust. All in all, this was a good semester here in Lexington ? we found a new dean, an (expensive) new basketball coach, and I finally got this paper out into the world. Yet, looking back,...
Picture Pages
Posted on May 03, 2009Following up on an earlier post, here are a few more pictures of famous property cases: William Fischel at Dartmouth has a series of photographic essays on the Lucas case in South Carolina. See here and here. And, in an...
Shrinky Dinks
Posted on May 01, 2009There was a really short but gripping article in the New York Times about how to manage declining cities. From the intro: Dozens of proposals have been floated over the years to slow [Flint, Michigan?s] endless decline. Now another idea...
WSJ on Blight and Eminent Domain
Posted on April 30, 2009Today's W$J has an article on blight and post-Kelo eminent domain, featuring a scintillating and profound quote from yours truly. Okay, maybe neither scintillating or profound. But I'm quoted, which should make my Dean happy, and that's all that matters,...
On the Subject of Post-Kelo Eminent Domain Reform . . .
Posted on April 30, 2009The new issue of the Review of Law and Economics has an article titled Pass a Law, Any Law, Fast! State Legislative Responses to the Kelo Backlash, by Edward J. Lopez (San Jose State), R. Todd Jewell (U. North Texas)...
Phoenix Housing Prices Fall By 50% in Less Than Three Years
Posted on April 29, 2009From the NY Times: Phoenix has achieved the unwelcome distinction of becoming the first major American city where home prices have fallen in half since the market peaked in the middle of the decade, according to data released Tuesday. Ouch....
More Entry Level Hires
Posted on April 29, 2009Legal Theory Blog has updated its 2009 Entry Level Hiring Report. Here are a few more hires with interests in Property stuff: Richard B Graves (Northern Kentucky) Irina Manta (Case Western Reserve) Talha M. Syed (Berkeley) Anastasia Telesetsky (Idaho) Steve...
Mossoff on Patent Thickets at the VC
Posted on April 29, 2009Adam Mossoff is blogging this week at the VC on his article on The Rise and Fall of the Sewing Machine Patent Thicket. Very interesting stuff. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in...
Renting the Land of Milk & Honey?
Posted on April 27, 2009David Plotz read every word of the Old Testament and blogged about the experience on Slate. One of Plotz's take home points is that in "the Bible there's more about real estate than there is about the Lord." As he...
The Way of the Dodo
Posted on April 27, 2009America's Most Endangered Places. Pic: Lanai City - Lanai, Hawaii. In 1922, James Dole, the president of Dole Food Company bought the entire island of Lanai and turned it into the world's largest pineapple plantation. Laborers from the Philippines, Korea,...
A Coney Island of The Mind
Posted on April 27, 2009The New York Daily News recounts the historic zoning battle that's shaping up over Coney Island: Coney Island is facing the most important neighborhood rezoning in the history of New York City. What happens here affects the economic future of...
Killing Trees
Posted on April 23, 2009Students have many reasons to loathe law school textbooks; the back-breaking size, the low-quality paper, the unanswered questions in the notes between cases (Do you see why?). The biggest gripe among my students, however, is the price of their materials...
Krier on Evolutionary Theory and the Origin of Property Rights
Posted on April 22, 2009James E. Krier (Michigan) has posted Evolutionary Theory and the Origin of Property Rights on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Legal scholars have never settled on a satisfactory account of the evolution of property rights. The touchstone for virtually all discussion,...
A Gift to be Simple, A Gift to be Free
Posted on April 21, 2009For anyone with an interest in Utopian communities, the New York Times Magazine ran a long article on the Transition Initiative: The Transition movement ... shares certain principles with environmentalism, but its vision is deeper ? and more radical ?...
Blogging the Bluegrass
Posted on April 20, 2009Lexington, Kentucky is a wonderful place to live and work. Founded in 1779, Lexington is the self-proclaimed "Horse Capital of the World," Kentucky's second largest city, and home to (arguably) the oldest law school in the country. Kentucky is also...
Bedbugs and the Implied Warranty of Habitability
Posted on April 17, 2009I was recently asked whether a bedbug infestation might support an implied warranty of habitability claim. I thought that it probably would. A quick Google search quickly turned up a story about a New York court decision holding that a...
Treehouses: A Growing Menace
Posted on April 17, 2009Advocates of strong zoning controls should consider themselves on notice; The treehouse construction industry is slowly undermining the land use system. Recently, there has been a wonderful string of news articles about confrontations between neighbors over the zoning of (really...
Prefab Housing for the Homeless
Posted on April 16, 2009Vancouver recently announced plans to construct 190 prefabricated, modular housing units on city-owned land adjacent to the Drake Hotel in the Downtown area. It seems the units will be operated by the City of Vancouver, and used as semi-permanent housing...
Lehavi on Taxing and Taking
Posted on April 15, 2009Amnon Lehavi (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah - Radzyner School of Law) has posted The Strand Not Taken: The Taxing/Taking Taxonomy in American Property Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Takings jurisprudence is struggling with a constant paradox. It is conventionally portrayed...
From bollards to bulb-outs
Posted on April 14, 2009GOOD Magazine has a interactive graphic explaining what makes a street pedestrian-friendly. Steve Clowney
Should We Care About Detroit?
Posted on April 13, 2009Detroit is sick: Unemployment has swept through the town like a grass fire. The automobile industry continues to spiral toward collapse. Buildings lay abandoned. Housing prices have crumpled - the median price of a home sold in Detroit in December...
Painting the Foreclosure Mess
Posted on April 11, 2009Designboom says: amy casey is a painter based in cleveland, ohio. casey has a fascination with the urban landscape and its evolution and transformation. in her paintings, casey depicts scenes of buildings, homes and city infrastructure being upended. she explains...
A Room With a View
Posted on April 10, 2009From Forbes Traveler, pictures of the world's best skylines.... Steve Clowney
Squatting in Foreclosed Homes
Posted on April 10, 2009From today's NY Times: Ms. Omega, 48, is one of the beneficiaries of the foreclosure crisis. Through a small advocacy group of local volunteers called Take Back the Land, she moved from a friend?s couch into a newly empty house...
Using Eminent Domain to Take the Preakness?
Posted on April 10, 2009Ilya Somin at the VC has some details. A taste: Maryland state legislators are considering legislation that would enable them to use eminent domain to condemn the Preakness Stakes horse-racing track, as well as the trademark and other intellectual property...
A Plug for Urban Legal History
Posted on April 10, 2009This semester I taught a seminar on the history of the physical development of Lexington, Kentucky, the town where my law school is nestled. I stole the idea whole cloth from Bob Ellickson, who has offered a similar course at...
Rose on Servitudes
Posted on April 10, 2009Carol M. Rose (Arizona) has posted Servitudes on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Traditional servitudes running with the land bristled with complex legal limitations, but those limitations served three comprehensible overlapping goals: assuring that potential future landowners would learn about servitude...
Klass on Carbon Sequestration and Property Rights
Posted on April 10, 2009Alexandra B. Klass (Minnesota) has posted Climate Change, Carbon Sequestration, and Property Rights on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article considers the role of property rights in efforts to sequester underground hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2)...
Reiss on Regulation of Subprime and Predatory Lending
Posted on April 10, 2009David J. Reiss (Brooklyn Law School) has posted Regulation of Subprime and Predatory Lending on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This is an entry on the Regulation of Subprime and Predatory Lending for THE INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HOUSING AND HOME (Elsevier...
Rose on Ellickson's Property Scholarship
Posted on April 09, 2009Carol M. Rose (Arizona) has posted Of Natural Threads and Legal Hoops: Bob Ellickson's Property Scholarship on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This brief retrospective identifies several of the constant ideas that have run through Robert Ellickson's property scholarship over a...
Salkin on Climate Change and Local Government
Posted on April 09, 2009Patricia Salkin (Albany) has posted New York Climate Change Report Card: Improvement Needed for More Effective Leadership and Overall Coordination with Local Government on SSRN. Here's the abstract: New York ranks eight out of the 50 states in terms of...
Massey on Church Property
Posted on April 09, 2009Calvin R. Massey (Hastings) has posted Church Schisms, Church Property, and Civil Authority on SSRN. Here's the abstract: When the Supreme Court decided Jones v. Wolf it required courts to use secular criteria to decide church property disputes, yet there...
Hirokawa From Texas Weslyan to Albany
Posted on April 09, 2009This is slightly old news, but PropertyProf Keith Hirokawa is moving from Texas Weslyan to Albany. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
A Thousand Words?
Posted on April 08, 2009PowerPoint has caused a good deal of angst in the LawProf blogosphere. Although I appreciate the arguments that it impedes learning, I'm firmly planted in the pro-PowerPoint vineyard. I like being able to present complicated hypotheticals on the screen...
Teaching the Rule Against Perpetuities
Posted on April 08, 2009The latest issue of The Law Teacher has a short essay by Diane J. Klein (La Verne) titled Why Teach The Rule Against Perpetuities: Four Good Reasons. Here are the reasons: (1) Studying the Rule Against Perpetuities Makes You Smarter...
AALS Call For Papers
Posted on April 08, 2009From Carol Brown, Chair of the AALS Property Section: The Sections on Property Law and Real Estate Transactions are co-sponsoring an extended program at the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. The program theme is law as transformative...
Global Warming as Property Problem
Posted on April 08, 2009Matt Yglesias recently posted a report that discusses how global warming may force the redrawing of international borders: Melting glaciers in the Alps may prompt Italy and Switzerland to redraw their borders near the Matterhorn, according to parliamentary draft legislation...
The Coming Rental Revolution
Posted on April 06, 2009In the last few weeks, The New York Times has run a series of unrelated articles exploring how the foreclosure crisis is affecting the rental housing market (see here, here, and here). The general thrust of these pieces is that...
Pritchett from Penn to Rutgers-Camden as Chancellor
Posted on April 06, 2009UPenn's Wendell Pritchett is moving to Rutgers-Camden as Chancellor. I'm not sure whether Wendell considers himself a PropertyProf, but I think it is fair to lay claim to him as one of our own because of his scholarship on housing...
More Waterblogging
Posted on April 02, 2009Jack Shafer of Slate has posted a neat piece that attempts to dispel the myth that water shortages can lead to armed combat: Water scarcity in the [Middle East] results in "conflict and tension," Barnaby adds, but the Israeli and...
A Toast to Property
Posted on April 02, 2009I came across a fun New York Times blog post about the trials and tribulations of trying to find one's "signature cocktail:" If I had to guess, I?d say that many of us aren?t drinking what we?d truly like to...
Notice to Commercial Tenants of Eminent Domain Taking
Posted on April 02, 2009The New Jersey Eminent Domain Blog has an interesting post on a recent decision by a New Jersey intermediate appellate court holding that a commercial tenant was not entitled to notice of eminent domain proceedings against the property. The post...
Supreme Court Opinion in Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs
Posted on April 01, 2009The Supreme Court issued an opinion yesterday in Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The case is a bit outside of my area of expertise, but might be of interest to PropertyProfs interested in landownership by indigenous peoples. It also...
The Ancient Mariner Was Right
Posted on March 31, 2009With fewer and fewer classes left in the semester, I'm starting to think about how I can make adjustments to my syllabus for next year. Most of my internal debate is fairly predictable: is the time spent on rule against...
McFarlane on Eminent Domain and Redevelopment
Posted on March 30, 2009Audrey McFarlane (U. Baltimore) has posted Rebuilding the Public-Private City: Regulatory Taking's Anti-Subordination Insights for Eminent Domain and Redevelopment on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The eminent domain debate, steeped in the language of property rights, currently lacks language and conceptual...
Billboard War
Posted on March 30, 2009The good people of Los Angeles are in the middle of a nasty dust up over the regulation of billboards. The long-running dispute pits the planning commission and City Council against the region's well-heeled outdoor advertising industry. Christopher Hawthorne of...
For the PropertyProf With Everything...
Posted on March 29, 2009...except a sense of style. hat tip: Faculty Lounge Steve Clowney
A Year in the Life
Posted on March 26, 2009Thinking more about the entry-level hires today raised one question: Is there anything property-specific that isn?t covered in the literature on getting started in legal academia? With only one year under my belt, I don't think I have a lot...
Does Patty Salkin Ever Sleep?
Posted on March 26, 2009I recently received a press release announcing the publication of the new five-volume American Law of Zoning from West, edited by Patty Salkin. Given the absurd number of other publications that Patty produces, not to mention her blog The Law...
Hernando de Soto on the Credit Crisis
Posted on March 26, 2009The Wall Street Journal has an op ed by Hernando de Soto on the credit crisis that will be of interest to property profs. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Priest from Northwestern to Yale
Posted on March 25, 2009PropertyProf Claire Priest is moving from Northwestern to Yale. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Penalver on Squatting at Slate
Posted on March 25, 2009Eduardo Penalver (Cornell), an occasional guest blogger here at PropertyProf, has an interesting article at Slate on how cities should react to squatters in the current economic environment. Some of his recommendations: [G]overnments should attack the problem on both the...
Ely on Post-Kelo Eminent Domain Reform at OUP Blog
Posted on March 25, 2009Over at the OUP blog, James W. Ely Jr. (Vanderbilt) has a post on post-Kelo eminent domain reform. His conclusion: Although the state legislative response to Kelo has been decidedly mixed, several state supreme courts have struck down the exercise...
Welcome to Thunderdome
Posted on March 25, 2009Tonight I was cruising through the Legal Theory Blog?s entry-level-hiring list and was struck by the awesomeness of the incoming profs. Wow. Special congratulations are in order for all the new PropertyProfs who have landed jobs. A hearty welcome to....
Adversely Possessing Your Blog
Posted on March 24, 2009Longtime listener, first time caller. Many thanks to Ben for inviting me to play on the PropertyProf sandbox. If all goes well over the next few weeks this blogging stuff will get me fired, I'll start my own website, and...
Guest Blogger Steve Clowney
Posted on March 24, 2009I'm delighted that Steve Clowney of the University of Kentucky School of Law will be joining us as a guest blogger. Welcome Steve! Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Moringiello on Virtual Worlds and Property Law
Posted on March 23, 2009Juliet M. Moringiello (Widener) has posted What Virtual Worlds Can Do For Property Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This is an article about how disputes over virtual world items, such as virtual money, Second Life islands, and even "sex...
Lehavi on Global Land Law
Posted on March 23, 2009Amnon Lehavi (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah - Radzyner School of Law) has posted The Global Law of the Land on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Are we witnessing the gradual universality of national land laws, which have traditionally been considered to be...
Stern from Loyola-Chicago to Chicago Kent
Posted on March 23, 2009PropertyProf Stephanie Stern is moving from Loyola-Chicago to Chicago Kent. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Miller on Copyright Originality
Posted on March 19, 2009Joseph Scott Miller (Lewis & Clark) has posted Hoisting Originality on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Copyright's originality standard is ripe for reappraisal. Many have described how copyright exclusion claims now intrude into the everyday lives of ordinary folk - making...
Parchomovsky and Stein on Originality in Copyright Law
Posted on March 19, 2009Gideon Parchomovsky (Penn) and Alex Stein (Yale/Cardozo) have posted Originality on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In this Essay we introduce a model of copyright law that calibrates authors' rights and liabilities to the level of originality in their works...
Mossoff on Patent Anticommons
Posted on March 19, 2009Adam Mossoff (George Mason) has posted A Stitch in Time: The Rise and Fall of the Sewing Machine Patent Thicket on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Scholarly interest in how anticommons theory applies to patents has skyrocketed since Professor Michael Heller...
Appel on Wilderness and the Judiciary
Posted on March 17, 2009Peter A. Appel (Georgia) has posted Wilderness and the Judiciary on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article examines how the decisions of four land management agencies governing wilderness areas under the Wilderness Act fare in the federal courts. Agencies normally...
Fed Cir Decision in Rose Acre Farms
Posted on March 12, 2009The Federal Circuit issued a decision in the long-running Rose Acre Farms case. Here are the first paragraphs: In 1992, Rose Acre Farms, Inc. (?Rose Acre?) filed the present action in the United States Court of Federal Claims, claiming that...
Blight and Foreclosures
Posted on March 11, 2009This past weekend's NY Times Magazine had a great story about Cleveland's attempts to deal with the foreclosure crisis. On a related point, Slate has a slideshow on abandoned housing. The slideshow focuses on abandoned houses that are next to...
Circo on Sustainability and Property
Posted on March 11, 2009Carl Circo (Arkansas) has posted Does Sustainability Require a New Theory of Property Rights? on SSRN. Here's the abstract:By demanding stewardship of natural capital over exploitation, sustainability envisions a property regime less committed to individual property rights than are the...
Stenseth on Property Theory
Posted on March 11, 2009Geir Stenseth (University of Oslo) has posted Current Empirical Premises to the Disclosure of the Secrets of Property in Law: A Foundation and a Guideline for Future Research on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This article presents an empirical legal study in...
Carpenter from Denver to University of Colorado
Posted on March 10, 2009PropertyProf Kristen Carpenter is moving from U. Denver to the University of Colorado, Boulder. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Barros on Legal Questions for the Psychology of Home
Posted on March 06, 2009I've posted Legal Questions for the Psychology of Home on SSRN. Here's the abstract:Intuitions often play a significant role in shaping debate about legal issues. This is particularly the case when homes and homeownership are involved, because the experience of...
Bell to San Diego
Posted on March 06, 2009According to the good folks at the Faculty Lounge, Property Prof Avi Bell will be joining the faculty at the University of San Diego on a half-time basis. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some...
Serkin on Existing Uses and the Limits of Land Use Regulation
Posted on March 06, 2009Christopher Serkin (Brooklyn) has posted Existing Uses and the Limits of Land Use Regulations on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This Article identifies the various ways in which property law provides special protection for existing uses, explores the possible justifications for this...
Porat on Private Production of Public Goods
Posted on March 06, 2009Ariel Porat (Tel Aviv University) has posted Private Production of Public Goods: Liability for Unrequested Benefits on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This paper explores why the law treats negative externalities (harms) and positive externalities (benefits) differently...
Osofsky on Local Scale and Greenhouse Gas Regulation
Posted on March 06, 2009Hari M. Osofsky (Washington and Lee) has posted Scaling 'Local': The Implications of Greenhouse Gas Regulation in San Bernardino County on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This Essay analyzes local climate regulation in San Bernardino County as a window into the complexities...
Kelly on Marital Property
Posted on February 25, 2009Alicia B. Kelly (Widener) has posted Money Matters in Marriage: Unmasking Interdependence in Ongoing Spousal Economic Relations on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This Article presents a rare exploration of the interactions among money, marriage and law while the relationship is ongoing...
Louisville Looking For Property Visitors
Posted on February 24, 2009From the announcement:The University of Louisville School of Law anticipates hiring visitingprofessors, both entry-level and experienced, for the 2009-10 academic year.Our curricular needs may include (but are not limited to) civil procedure,torts, trusts and estates, property, legal writing, and other...
Treanor on Epstein's Supreme Neglect
Posted on February 19, 2009William Michael Treanor (Fordham) has posted Supreme Neglect on SSRN. Here's the abstract:In Supreme Neglect, Professor Richard Epstein has produced a clear and elegant synthesis for the general reader of his lifetime of thinking about the Takings Clause and, more...
Sagalyn on Land Assembly
Posted on February 19, 2009Lynne B. Sagalyn (Columbia Business School) has posted Land Assembly, Land Readjustment and Public/Private Redevelopment on SSRN. Here's the abstract:A firm premise of urban redevelopment is the need for public action to deal with the practical problems of urban land...
Lebovits on New York Residential Landlord-Tenant Law and Procedure
Posted on February 19, 2009Gerald Lebovits (St. John's) has posted New York Residential Landlord-Tenant Law and Procedure on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This book chapter, also published separately as a book/monograph, addresses residential landlord-tenant law, practice, and procedure in New York State...
Ferreira et al on Hosing Busts and Household Mobility
Posted on February 18, 2009Fernando V. Ferreira (Wharton), Joseph Gyourko (Wharton), and Joseph S. Tracy (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) have posted Housing Busts and Household Mobility on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Using two decades of American Housing Survey data from 1985 to...
Rappaport on Originalism and Regulatory Takings
Posted on February 18, 2009Michael B. Rappaport (San Diego) has posted Originalism and Regulatory Takings: Why the Fifth Amendment May Not Protect Against Regulatory Takings, But the Fourteenth Amendment May on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This articles explores the widely disputed issue of whether Takings...
Takings Under the Fifth And Fourteenth Amendments
Posted on February 18, 2009Over at the VC, Jonathan Adler has an interesting post on takings and incorporation, drawing on Michael Rappaport's article mentioned in the post above. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Salsich on Diversity in Housing
Posted on February 13, 2009Peter W. Salsich (Saint Louis Univ.) has posted Toward a Policy of Heterogeneity: Overcoming a Long History of Socioeconomic Segregation in Housing on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This article focuses on the exclusionary effects of land use regulation on housing availability...
Boudreaux on Property and Development Policy
Posted on February 13, 2009Karol Boudreaux (George Mason - Mercatus Center) has posted The Role of Property Rights as an Institution: Implications for Development Policy on SSRN. Here's the abstract:There is a very real risk that reforms enacted in the name of property rights....
Hernando de Soto and Property in a Market Economy - Podcast
Posted on February 11, 2009The podcast of the Property Section panel from last month's meeting in San Diego is now online. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Davidson on Property and Relative Status
Posted on February 09, 2009Nestor M. Davidson (Colorado) has posted Property and Relative Status on SSRN. Here's the abstract:Property does many things - it incentivizes productive activity, facilitates exchange, forms an integral part of individual identity, and shapes communities...
Schultz on Live Performance and IP
Posted on February 09, 2009Mark F. Schultz (Southern Illinois) has posted Live Performance, Copyright, and the Future of the Music Business on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This article considers whether the emergence of business models based on free digital delivery of music and other content...
Murray on Private Management of Public Spaces
Posted on February 09, 2009Michael F. Murray (Yale) has posted Private Management of Public Spaces: Nonprofit Organizations and Urban Parks on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This paper argues that a theoretical account of the formation and operation of the nonprofit organizations (NPOs) that increasingly manage...
Munzer on Community Biotechnological Assets
Posted on February 09, 2009Stephen R. Munzer (UCLA) has posted Commons, Anticommons and Community in Biotechnological Assets on SSRN. Here's the abstract:I argue for three theses: T1 - It is possible to use access to scientific knowledge to reinforce existing scientific communities and sometimes...
Villazor from SMU to Hofstra
Posted on February 07, 2009Propertyprof Rose Cuison Villazor is moving from SMU to Hofstra. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Claeys Reviews Merrill & Smith
Posted on February 07, 2009Eric Claeys (George Mason) has posted Property 101: Is Property a Thing or a Bundle? on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This Review Essay reviews Property: Principles and Policies (2007), by Thomas W. Merrill and Henry E. Smith, focusing particularly on its...
Tate on Publicity Rights, Taxation, and the Power of Testation
Posted on February 07, 2009Joshua C. Tate (SMU) has posted Immortal Fame: Publicity Rights, Taxation, and the Power of Testation on SSRN. Here's the abstract:Publicity rights, or the rights to the use of one's image and likeness, are a relatively recent form of property....
Malloy on DeSoto
Posted on February 07, 2009Robin Paul Malloy (Syracuse) has posted The Mystery of Capital and Inequality of Outcome in Formal Porperty Ownership on SSRN. Here's the abstract:Hernando DeSoto has argued that economic development is linked to creating accessible representations of property so that more...
Schmudde on the Subprime Mess
Posted on February 07, 2009David Schmudde (Fordham) has posted Responding to the Subprime Mess: The New Regulatory Landscape on SSRN. Here's the abstract:An era of unregulated financial markets has resulted in a global financial disaster the likes of which has never before been seen...
Suk on Taking the Home
Posted on February 06, 2009Jeannie Suk (Harvard) has posted Taking the Home on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This essay juxtaposes two Supreme Court cases, Kelo v. City of New London, and Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales. Both reflect on the meanings of home as...
Sisk on The Unconstitutionality of State-Sanctioned Trespass
Posted on February 06, 2009Gregory C. Sisk (St. Thomas - Minnesota) Returning to the PruneYard: The Unconstitutionality of State-Sanctioned Trespass in the Name of Speech on SSRN. Here's the abstract:In PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, the United States Supreme Court held that the owner...
Blumenthal on A Psychological Perspective on Property Law
Posted on February 06, 2009Jeremy A. Blumenthal (Syracuse) has posted "To Be Human": A Psychological Perspective on Property Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract:The psycholegal study of property law, theory, and doctrine is a new and developing topic area. As one Article in a...
Kettles on Day Labor Markets and Public Space
Posted on February 06, 2009Gregg W. Kettles (Loyola Law School - Los Angeles) has posted Day Labor Markets and Public Space on SSRN. Here's the abstract:Day laborers standing on street corners have become a more common, and more controversial, sight in many U.S. cities....
Levitin on Modification of Mortgages in Bankruptcy
Posted on February 06, 2009Adam Levitin (Georgetown) has posted Helping Homeowners: Modification of Mortgages in Bankruptcy on SSRN. Here's the abstract:This short essay sets forth the case for permitting modification of all residential mortgages in bankruptcy as an important step in easing the foreclosure...
AALS Property Section -- Call for Papers
Posted on February 03, 2009The Property and Taxation Sections of the AALS are seeking to co-sponsor a half day session at the annual AALS meeting next year (January, 2010) in New Orleans. If you are working on the intersection of these two areas of...
Sports Stadium Leases
Posted on February 01, 2009The recent controversy over attempts by Kansas City to pry (some might say steal) the New York Islanders NFL hockey team from the Nassau County Coliseum has got me collecting stories about teams that have bought their way of our...
McLaughlin and Weeks on Conservation Easements
Posted on January 30, 2009Nancy A. McLaughlin (Utah) and W. William Weeks (Indiana) have posted In Defense of Conservation Easements: A Response to 'The End of Perpetuity' on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article critiques the arguments offered in favor of treating donated conservation...
Sagalyn on Kelo and Public Opinion
Posted on January 30, 2009Lynne B. Sagalyn (Columbia Business School) has posted Positioning Politics: Kelo, Eminent Domain, and the Press on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper explores the politics of the Kelo backlash by analyzing the content of public opinion published in editorials,...
Colburn on Constitutional Property and Future Generations
Posted on January 30, 2009Jamison E. Colburn (Penn State) has posted Splitting the Atom of Property: Rights Experimentalism as Obligation to Future Generations on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Property is surely among the U.S. Constitution's principal objects of protection. As a right, though, property...
LaCroix on Land Use and Climate Change
Posted on January 30, 2009Catherine J. LaCroix (Case Western) has posted Land Use and Climate Change: Is it Time for a National Land Use Policy? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: During the past few years it has become apparent that the challenge of climate...
Parchomovsky and Stein on Reconceptualizing Trespass
Posted on January 29, 2009Gideon Parchomovsky (U. Penn) and Alex Stein (Yale and Cardozo) have posted Reconceptualizing Trespass on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Essay addresses an anomaly in trespass law. Trespass law is generally understood as the paradigmatic example of property-rule protection: an...
Serkin and Tebbe on RLUIPA and Eminent Domain
Posted on January 29, 2009Christopher Serkin and Nelson Tebbe (Brooklyn) have posted Condemning Religion: The Political Economy of RLUIPA on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Should religious landowners enjoy special protection from eminent domain? A recent federal statute, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons...
Blackman on Class Actions and Eminent Domain
Posted on January 29, 2009Josh Blackman (George Mason) has posted Taking the Home of a Class of One and the Path of Least Resistance: How the Equal Protection Clause and Village of Willowbrook V. Olech Can Protect Homeowners from Eminent Domain Abuse on SSRN....
Borden on Open Tenancies in Common
Posted on January 29, 2009Bradley T. Borden (Washburn) has posted Open Tenancies in Common on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Tax law (section 1031 in particular) has spawned a new investment vehicle-open tenancies in common. Tax law allows property owners to exchange into like-kind real...
Stern on the Legal Mythology of Home
Posted on January 27, 2009Stephanie Stern (Loyola Chicago) has posted Residential Protectionism and the Legal Mythology of Home on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Residential real estate has achieved an exalted status and privileged position in American property law. The notion of the home as...
Claeys on Virtue and Rights in American Property Law
Posted on January 27, 2009Eric Claeys (George Mason) has posted Virtue and Rights in American Property Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper contributes to a forthcoming theme issue on property and virtue theory. It is written as a response to "The Social-Obligation...
California Western Looking For Property Prof
Posted on January 26, 2009The folks at California Western sent this along: California Western School of Law invites applications from visiting faculty to teach Property for the fall and possibly the spring of the 2009-2010 academic year. We are looking for candidates with excellent...
Community and Property
Posted on January 23, 2009Theoretical Inquiries of Law has a new issue out on Community and Property that looks outstanding. Here's the table of contents: Introduction Community and Custom in Property Henry E. Smith How Property Can Create, Maintain, or Destroy Community Amnon Lehavi...
Yale Pocket Part Symposium on Virtual Worlds
Posted on January 19, 2009The Yale Pocket Part is holding a symposium on virtual worlds. Two articles look like they would be of particular interest to property profs: James Grimmelmann, Virtual World Feudalism, and Joseph Blocher, Reputation as Property in Virtual Economies. Ben Barros...
Bronin on Sustainable Design and Land Use
Posted on January 19, 2009Sara C. Bronin (U. Conn.) has posted The Quiet Revolution Revived: Sustainable Design, Land Use Regulation, and the States on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Thirty-seven years ago, a book called The Quiet Revolution in Land Use Control argued that states...
Fenster on Lingle and the Stubborn Incoherence of Regulatory Takings
Posted on January 15, 2009Mark Fenster (Florida) has posted The Stubborn Incoherence of Regulatory Takings on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Lingle v. Chevron (2005), the Supreme Court's most recent effort to sort the complex federal constitutional regulatory takings doctrine, resulted in what commentators have...
Bird and Oswald on Necessity and Eminent Domina
Posted on January 15, 2009Robert C. Bird (Univ. of Connecticut - Department of Marketing) and Lynda J. Oswald (Univ. of Michigan - Stephen M. Ross School of Business) have posted Necessity as a Check on State Eminent Domain Power on SSRN. Here's the abstract:...
Eagle on Property, Planning, and State Power
Posted on January 15, 2009Steven J. Eagle (George Mason) has posted Reflections on Private Property, Planning, and State Power on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This essay, in a journal for professional planners and planning lawyers, proposes that the debate between advocates of private property...
Property Section Listserv
Posted on January 12, 2009Just a reminder that information about joining the AALS Property Section Listserv can be found through this link. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in approval]
Property Mid-Year Meeting 2010
Posted on January 12, 2009I recently learned that the Property Section of the AALS has been approved for a mid-year meeting in 2010. No date or location has been set. I'll post more info as I get it. Ben Barros [Comments are held for...
New AALS Property Section Leadership
Posted on January 12, 2009Here is the new AALS Section Leadership: Chair: Carol Brown, UNC Chair-Elect: Kali Murray, Marquette Secretary: Nestor Davidson, Colorado Executive Committee Members: John Fee, BYU; Shelley Saxer, Pepperdine; Steve Eagle, GMU Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there...
Back from AALS
Posted on January 12, 2009Thanks to all of you who attended the various property programs at AALS in San Diego. It was great to see so many blog readers in person. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay...
Bees, Trespass, and Tangerine Trees
Posted on January 09, 2009Carl Christensen of the University of Hawaii Law School has sent along a link to a findlaw story, "Tangerine growers tell beekeepers to buzz off." The story begins with a questions: Is it trespassing when bees do what bees do...
Off to AALS
Posted on January 05, 2009I'm heading off to the AALS Conference in San Diego. Hope to see you there at one of the Property Section events! Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Malagrino on Communal Theories of Urban Property
Posted on January 05, 2009Dylan Oliver Malagrino (UC Davis) has posted The Application of Communal Theories to Urban Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The advantages of privatized property regimes and common property regimes have been debated in legal and economic discourse for ages...
Burke on National Treasures and National Security
Posted on January 05, 2009Marcilynn A. Burke (University of Houston Law Center) has posted Green Peace? Protecting Our National Treasures While Providing for Our National Security on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Department of Defense...
Poverty Law Events at AALS
Posted on January 05, 2009From the folks at the AALS Poverty Law Section: Section on Poverty Law: January AALS Program: "Privatization: Promise and Pitfall at the Intersection of Law, Markets and Poverty" - January 9, 3:30 - 5:15 p.m. This year our AALS program...
International Tribunal Rules For Zimbabwe Farmers on Land Expropriation
Posted on December 29, 2008The New York Times has an interesting story on an international tribunal's condemnation of Zimbabwe's confiscation of white farmers' property: Mr. Etheredge this year became one of dozens of white farmers to challenge the government?s right to confiscate their land,...
Papers for Junior Scholars Works in Progress Panel
Posted on December 29, 2008As we've previously noted, the Property Section will hold a Junior Scholars Works in Progress Panel at AALS. The panel will be held on Friday, January 9, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. If you are attending the panel, you...
Snowzilla: Public Nuisance
Posted on December 26, 2008Thanks to a tip from a former student (Addie McKinney) I see that Snowzilla (a two story tall snowman) has been abated in Anchorage. From the introduction to the Anchorage Daily News story: Anchorage's famous giant snow man, Snowzilla, finally...
Kelly on Title Clearing in the Internet Age
Posted on December 22, 2008James J. Kelly Jr. (Univ. of Baltimore) has posted Bringing Clarity to Title Clearing: Tax Foreclosure and Due Process in the Internet Age on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The foreclosure of property tax liens performs an essential economic function by....
Spiller v, Mackereth
Posted on December 21, 2008Doing a little cross-posting from the faculty lounge this morning. Users of the Dukeminier and Krier (and now Schill and Alexander) property casebook may recall the 1976 Alabama case of Spiller v. Mackereth, which dealt with relations between two co-tenants...
Changing Conceptions of Property Seminar
Posted on December 17, 2008Via the Legal History Blog, I learned that the Folger Library is holding a seminar titled "Changing Conceptions of Property" that will meet on Thursday and Friday afternoons between May 14 and June 12, 2009. Here's the annoucement: This seminar,...
Glaeser and Gyourko on Federal Housing Policy
Posted on December 16, 2008Edward L. Glaeser (Harvard Economics) and Joseph Gyourko (Wharton) have a new book out from AEI called Rethinking Federal Housing Policy. The book is available as a pdf from the AEI website through the previous link. Here's the publisher's blurb:...
Byrne on Gettysburg and Historic Preservation
Posted on December 16, 2008J. Peter Byrne (Georgetown) has posted Hallowed Ground: The Gettysburg Battlefield in Historic Preservation Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article seeks to deepen legal analysis of historic preservation law by analyzing how contemporary presuppositions and legal tools shape...
Salkin on Land Use Ethics
Posted on December 16, 2008Patricia Salkin (Albany) has posted Ethical Considerations in Land Use Law Blowing in the Wind on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper focuses on current legal issues in ethical considerations in land use planning and zoning decision making with a...
Eviction of Tenants From Foreclosed Apartments
Posted on December 15, 2008Mark Edwards has some interesting thoughts on this issue over at the Co-op. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Fertile Septuagenarian
Posted on December 12, 2008A couple of days ago, Kaimi Wenger noted this interesting story out of India: Rajo Devi became the oldest woman in recorded history to ever give birth on November 28, when the 70-year-old delivered a baby girl in India. ....
First Circuit's Decision in Vineberg v. Bissonnette
Posted on December 11, 2008How did I miss this? Last month Judge Selya wrote an opinion affirming a summary judgement award of a painting that Max Stern, an art dealer, was forced by the Nazis to sell at below fair market value in 1937....
Ostrom on Trust in Private and Common Property Experiments
Posted on December 08, 2008Elinor Ostrom (Indiana - Political Science) has posted Trust in Private and Common Property Experiments on SSRN. Here's the abstract: We report the results from a series of experiments designed to investigate behavior in two settings that are frequently posited...
Ostrom and Hess on Private and Common Property Rights
Posted on December 08, 2008Elinor Ostrom (Indiana - Political Science) and Charlotte Hess (Indiana) have posted Private and Common Property Rights on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The relative advantages of private property and common property for the efficiency, equity, and sustainability of natural resource...
Davidson on Standardization and Pluralism in Property Law
Posted on December 05, 2008Nestor M. Davidson (Colorado) has posted Standardization and Pluralism in Property Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Property interests evince a near-universal tendency to coalesce into a limited list of mandatory forms, such as the estates in land, servitudes, and...
Macey, O'Hara and Rosenberg on Applying Broker-Dealer Law to Subprime Mortgages
Posted on December 05, 2008Jonathan R. Macey (Yale); Maureen O'Hara (Cornell - School of Management) and Gabriel D. Rosenberg (Yale) have posted Helping Law Catch Up to Markets: Applying Broker-Dealer Law to Subprime Mortgages on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Much of the blame for...
Bar-Gill on Subprime Mortgages
Posted on December 05, 2008Oren Bar-Gill (NYU) has posted The Law, Economics and Psychology of Subprime Mortgage Contracts on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Over 4 million subprime loans were originated in 2006, bringing the total value of outstanding subprime loans over a trillion dollars...
Stealing the Empire State Building
Posted on December 05, 2008I'm finishing up Property I later this morning with continuing discussion of the recording acts, and couldn't help posting this amazing story. Turns out the NY Daily News "stole" the Empire State Building by filing fake deeds with New York's...
How to Read a Legal Opinion . . . .
Posted on December 02, 2008Folks have asked where this article can be found. You may locate it at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1160925 Carol N. Brown comments are held for approval so there will be some delay in posting
Landmarks Preservation of Religious Buildings
Posted on December 01, 2008Along similar lines to the article mentioned in the last post, the Times has an article on some of the issues that arise when a religious building is being considered for landmarks preservation: Houses of worship are among the most...
Preemptive Demolition
Posted on December 01, 2008The NY Times has an interesting story about the efforts of property owners and developers to destroy or alter a property to avoid landmarks demolition. An excerpt: The strategy has become wearyingly familiar to preservationists. A property owner ? in...
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted on November 26, 2008Happy Thanksgiving everyone. A few years ago, I blogged about my conservative, traditional approach to Thanksgiving. I have to confess that, for various family reasons, we are going to a restaurant this year. I may very well get the prime...
How to Read a Legal Opinion . . . .
Posted on November 25, 2008Professor Orin Kerr has published a nice article that is certainly helpful for first year, first semester law students but that also might be very helpful for disappointed students who are returning for their second semester of their first year....
Penn Central Transportation Company v. New York, Noteworthy Event
Posted on November 24, 2008Those of us who teach Penn Central Trans., a seminal landmark preservation case, noted the passing last month of Dorothy Miner. Ms. Miner was counsel to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and played a critical role in litigating...
Ziegler on Sustainable Metropolitan Development
Posted on November 22, 2008Edward H. Ziegler (Denver) sent along his most recent paper, The Case for Megapolitan Growth Management in the 21st Century: Regional Urban Planning and Sustainable Development in the United States (Download ziegler_megapolitan.pdf). Here's the abstract: This article provides an analysis...
Tate on Fedeicommissa and the Theodosian Code
Posted on November 22, 2008Don't know what Fedeicommissa or the Theodosian Code? Read on! Joshua C. Tate (SMU) has posted Codification of Late Roman Inheritance Law: Fideicommissa and the Theodosian Code on SSRN. Here's the abstract: It has long been known that most of...
Good Facts for a Nuisance Question
Posted on November 22, 2008If you are looking for really compelling facts for a nuisance law question, there was an interesting story in the NY Times this summer entitled, "An Old Sound in Harlem Draws New Neighbors' Ire." I have attempted to attach the...
Marcilynn Burke -- Recently Tenured at Houston
Posted on November 22, 2008Please join me in congratulating Marcilynn Burke who received a unanimous vote in favor of tenure on Friday, November 21, 2008 from her colleagues at the University of Houston Law Center. This is a wonderful accomplishment and well-deserved. Carol N....
"House" the television medical drama and race specific drugs
Posted on November 20, 2008Did anyone see the recent episode of the television medical drama, House, in which the black doctor on Dr. House's team assigned a high blood pressure medicine to an older black male patient after telling the patient something along the...
AALS Real Estate Transactions Section -- Field Trip
Posted on November 20, 2008The Naval Training Center in San Diego closed in 1995. The city redeveloped this prime location on San Diego Bay as Liberty Station. The development "restores waterfront access to the public for the first time in 80 years, creates new...
Guest Blogger Carol Brown
Posted on November 20, 2008I'm delighted that Carol Brown (UNC) will be joining us as a guest blogger. Carol, among other things, is Chair-Elect of the AALS Property Section. Welcome, Carol! Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay...
Fennell on Adjusting Alienability
Posted on November 19, 2008Lee Anne Fennell (Chicago) has posted Adjusting Alienability on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In recent years, the right to exclude has dominated property theory, relegating alienability - another of the standard incidents of ownership - to the scholarly shadows...
Montana S. Ct. Resolves Mitchell Slough Dispute
Posted on November 19, 2008The Montana Supreme Court resolved a long-running water rights dispute, which focused on whether the Mitchell Slough was a natural watercourse: In a case with statewide implications, the Montana Supreme Court ruled Monday that Mitchell Slough is open to recreation...
Malloy on Inclusive Design
Posted on November 19, 2008Robin Paul Malloy (Syracuse) has posted Inclusion by Design: Accessible Housing and the Mobility Impaired on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In the midst of pervasive national efforts at improving accessibility to public places for people with disabilities, there is no...
Property Section Newsletter/AALS Section Panels
Posted on November 14, 2008Thanks to Kali Murray, the Secretary of the Property Section, this year's Property Section Newsletter is now available: Download property_newsletter1_nov1.pdf. Among other things, the Newsletter highlights the Section's two panels at the AALS conference in San Diego: First, the Section...
Korngold on the Mortgage Crisis
Posted on November 12, 2008Gerald Korngold (New York Law School) has posted Legal and Policy Choices in the Aftermath of the Subprime and Mortgage Financing Crisis on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This essay, delivered at a symposium at the University of South Carolina in...
Never Forget The True Owner In Finding Cases
Posted on November 09, 2008A while ago, we noted a dispute between a contractor and a homeowner about a bunch of 1920s currency found in a wall. Classic finder v. owner of the locus dispute, right? Well, the publicity generated by the dispute brought...
Estate of Panic
Posted on November 08, 2008Hmm, I'm not quite sure this is high-brow enough for propertyprof. But ... sci-fi channel is bringing us a new original series, "Estate of Panic." According to the sci-fi channel's website: There's no place like this home. Estate of Panic...
Teaching Natural Resources Law in First Year Property
Posted on November 05, 2008The paper on drilling in the Marcellus Shale mentioned in the previous post is very timely -- I just did a short unit on ownership of water and natural resources in my first-year Property class. This was the first time...
Bollinger on Marcellus Shale
Posted on November 05, 2008Justin Bollinger has posted Marcellus Shale Exploration & Farmland Preservation in Pennsylvania on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The recent boom in drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation, hidden deep below the surface in parts of northern and...
Can't Avoid Stambovsky, Especially On Halloween
Posted on October 31, 2008As regular readers know, I really don't like Stambovsky v. Ackley, the famed haunted house case. So starting last year, I cut it out of my coverage of real estate transactions in first year property. But many of my students...
Villazor on Blood Quantum Laws
Posted on October 31, 2008Rose Cuison Villazor (SMU) has posted Blood Quantum Land Laws and the Race Versus Political Identity Dilemma on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Modern equal protection doctrine treats laws that make distinctions on the basis of indigeneity defined on blood quantum...
Bell on Regulatory Takings
Posted on October 29, 2008Abraham Bell (Bar Ilan/University of Connecticut) has posted Should Decreases in Property Value Caused by Regulations Be Compensated? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Essay attempts to determine the correct regulatory takings compensation policy given the general doctrinal framework in...
Evictions from State-Owned Land in Hawaii
Posted on October 25, 2008The Honolulu Advertiser brings news of evictions of residents from state land on the north shore of Oahu. We hear another lesson in what we might call legal realism: Each family is being evicted for various reasons, said Ervin Kahala,...
Roark on Fixtures Under Article 9
Posted on October 24, 2008Marc Lane Roark (University of Missouri School of Law) has posted 'Groping Along...Between Things Real and Things Personal' A New Hermeneutic of Fixtures under UCC 9-334 on SSRN. Here's the abstract: What are the defining characteristics of fixtures under the...
Nave on Housing Remedies in School Segregation Litigation
Posted on October 24, 2008Erin C. Nave (Washington University, St. Louis) has posted Getting to the Roots of School Segregation: The Challenges of Housing Remedies in Northern School Desegregation Litigation on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The critical relationship between racially identifiable neighborhoods in northern...
Chen on The New Chinese Property Code
Posted on October 24, 2008Lei Chen (Stellenbosch University) has posted The New Chinese Property Code: A Giant Step Forward? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article examines the significance of the new Chinese Property Code from a comparative perspective. The new code aims to...
Zoning Law v. The Bubble
Posted on October 22, 2008From the AP: Ten hours a day, every day, Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes confines herself to a galvanized-steel-and-porcelain shed outside her house. Inside are a toilet, a metal cabinet, a box spring with the metal coils exposed, and a pile of organic...
Money and Politics in Zoning -- Who Would Have Thought?
Posted on October 20, 2008The Chicago Tribune has a remarkable series of stories based on an investigation into Chicago zoning practices. From their summary: In an unprecedented investigation, the Tribune analyzed a decade of zoning changes to detail how real estate interests have funneled...
At the Intersection of Property and Remedies
Posted on October 16, 2008From today's news, we hear of a Florida man who was jailed for contempt of court after he failed to abide a judge's order to take care of his lawn, as required by covenants on his property. I might have...
Krier on the Evolution of Property Rights
Posted on October 16, 2008James E. Krier (Michigan) has posted The Evolution of Property Rights: A Synthetic Overview on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In this paper I review, extend, and critique two contrasting approaches to the evolution of property rights. The legal literature on...
Piccard on Residential Evictions in Florida
Posted on October 16, 2008Ann Piccard (Stetson) has posted Residential Evictions in Florida: When the Rent is Due, Where is the Process? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Florida's residential eviction statute requires that a tenant who is sued for eviction must deposit into the....
Singer on Property in a Free and Democratic Society
Posted on October 13, 2008Joseph William Singer (Harvard) has posted Democratic Estates: Property Law in a Free and Democratic Society on SSRN. Here's the abstract: How should we think about property and property law both descriptively and normatively? This article suggests we consider this...
Morriss on Politics and Property in Natural Resources
Posted on October 13, 2008Andrew P. Morriss (Illinois) has posted Politics & Property in Natural Resources on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Modern discussions of natural resources focus on increasing public control over extractive industries proposing measures that range from increasing the public's share of...
Who Says You Can't Physically Partition a Single Family House?
Posted on October 10, 2008CNN has a fascinating story about a Cambodian couple who cut their house in two when they divorced. (More accurately, the husband cut the house in half and moved his part to land owned by his parents). You MUST click...
Even on Appropriability and Property
Posted on October 10, 2008Yonatan Even (Columbia) has posted Appropriability and Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper challenges the malleability of the idea of property as a relative, indeterminate "bundle of rights", which appears to dominate property doctrine at least since Ronald...
RLUIPA Podcasts
Posted on October 08, 2008Over at Law of the Land, Patty Salkin has links to the podcasts of what looks to have been an outstanding symposium on RLUPIA. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Takings for Private Use in India
Posted on October 07, 2008NPR has an interesting story about controversy surrounding the building of an auto factory in India. Thanks to Eduardo Penalver for the tip. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
A Haunted House and a Rescission?
Posted on October 06, 2008Because I know how much Ben loves Stambovsky, I thought I'd post a link to Fox News' discussion of whether some buyers can rescind their purchase of a "haunted house," Clifton Hall. By the way, I don't think this has...
Teaching With Popper's Bordering on Madness
Posted on October 06, 2008Carolina Academic Press is issuing a second edition of Andrew F. Popper's novel Bordering on Madness: An American Land Use Tale: Bordering on Madness is a novel about a battle between a university and a community over proposed construction of...
Schwemm on Landlord Discrimination
Posted on October 03, 2008Robert G. Schwemm (University of Kentucky) has posted Why Do Landlord Still Discriminate (and What Can Be Done About it)? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article deals with the problem of racial discrimination in rental housing in the United...
Kelly on Neighborhood Revitalization
Posted on October 03, 2008James J. Kelly Jr. (University of Baltimore) has posted Refreshing the Heart of the City: Vacant Building Receivership as a Tool for Neighborhood Revitalization and Community Empowerment on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Vacant Building Receivership is a building code enforcement...
Einhorn on Slavery
Posted on October 01, 2008Robin Einhorn (UC Berkeley) has posted Slavery on SSRN. Unfortunately, it is not a free download. Here's the abstract: The history of slavery cannot be separated from the history of business in the United States, especially in the context of...
Lewinsohn-Zamir on Identifying Intense Preferences
Posted on September 30, 2008Daphna Lewinsohn-Zamir (Hebrew University - Faculty of Law) has posted Identifying Intense Preferences on SSRN. Here's the abstract: People's preferences vary in intensity: some are relatively strong while others are comparatively weak. Information regarding the strength of preferences is essential...
Willis on The Mortgage Crisis and Eminent Domain
Posted on September 30, 2008Lauren E. Willis (Loyola LA) has posted Stabilize Home Mortgage Borrowers, and the Financial System Will Follow on SSRN. Here's the abstract: To halt the Great Depression, the federal government nullified all clauses in contracts that pegged debt to the...
Bell on Private Takings
Posted on September 26, 2008Abraham Bell (Bar Ilan/U Conn) has posted Private Takings on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Eminent domain, or the power to take, is generally analyzed as the quintessential government power. It is unsurprising, therefore, that scholars tend to operate from the...
Chang on Eminent Domain Compensation
Posted on September 26, 2008Yun-chien Chang (NYU) has posted An Empirical Study of Compensation Paid in Eminent Domain Settlements: New York City 1990-2002 on SSRN. Here's the abstract: No large-scale empirical study on compensation paid in eminent domain settlement has been undertaken in the...
Iglesias on Housing and Public-Private Partnerships
Posted on September 26, 2008Tim Iglesias (University of San Francisco) has posted Our Pluralist Housing Ethics and Public-Private Partnerships for Affordable Housing on SSRN. Here's the abstract: While affordable housing has been produced through a variety of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for many decades, this...
Yankee Stadium Home Run Baseball Dispute
Posted on September 24, 2008From the NY Times: Yankees catcher José Molina hit the last home run at Yankee Stadium. That is not in dispute. Who should have pocketed the ball seems to be. In Sunday night?s Yankees-Orioles game ? the last baseball game...
Moose, Free For the Taking
Posted on September 24, 2008From Craigslist: I have a dead moose free for the taking. It died yesterday, apparently of natural causes. I called Fish & Game to come and get it. Apparently, moose are a natural resource and belong to everybody, until they...
Schwemm on Discriminatory Municipal Services under the FHA
Posted on September 24, 2008Robert G. Schwemm (University of Kentucky) has posted Cox, Halprin, and Discriminatory Municipal Services under the Fair Housing Act on SSRN. Here's the abstract: For most of its forty-year history, the federal Fair Housing Act ("FHA") has been accorded a...
AALS Donative Transfers Section Panel
Posted on September 21, 2008The Wills, Trusts and Estates blog has a post about the Donative transfers section panel, which may be of interests to many propertyprofs. Info on the Property section panels will come in a future post. Ben Barros [Comments are held...
Deng on Post-Disaster Reconficuration of Property Rights
Posted on September 19, 2008Feng Deng (Chongqing University) has posted Post-Disaster Reconfiguration of Property Rights: The Case of Wenchuan Earthquake on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper draws on the ongoing reconstruction in Wenchuan Earthquake areas and studies how a new world of private...
Prefabricated Modern Houses
Posted on September 16, 2008Longtime readers of propertyprof may recall my love affair with modernist housing. Thanks to the New York Times' article "Housing the Universe" for pointing me towards this website for prefabricated modern houses from IKEA and this one for homes from...
Chouinard and Steinhoff on Split-Estate Negotiations
Posted on September 16, 2008The most recent issue of the Review of Law & Economics has an article by Hayley H. Chouinard and Christina Steinhoff (Washington State) called Split-Estate Negotiations: The Case of Coal-Bed Methane. Here's the abstract: Coal-bed methane is an emerging contributor...
Coke Zero's "Lawsuit" and the Similiar Property Theory?!
Posted on September 14, 2008On the way back home from California, I watched a ton of television. In fact, it's been years since I watched an entire afternoon of television; but, hey, the television was right in front of me and I was too...
Berkeley Tree Protest
Posted on September 14, 2008I'm just back from Berkeley--my first visit to that town. Pretty exciting for this legal historian to see a place that looms so large in recent history--and because I'm increasingly interested in the legal rules regarding parks and trees. Berkeley's....
Conference: Hawai?i State Historic Preservation Laws: Reclaiming the Past, Shaping the Future
Posted on September 14, 2008Sometimes visitor here at propertyprof Carl Christensen reports that the University of Hawaii's William S. Richardson School of Law is hosting a conference on "Hawai?i State Historic Preservation Laws: Reclaiming the Past, Shaping the Future" on September 27...
Tate on Taxation of Posmortem Publicity Rights
Posted on September 12, 2008A while ago, I noted an interesting article by Gans, Crawford & Blattmachr on the tax treatment of rights of publicity. Josh Tate (SMU) has now posted a response titled Marilyn Monroe?s Legacy: Taxation of Postmortem Publicity Rights. Here's his...
Call For Submissions - AALS Property Law Section Junior Scholars Works-In-Progress Panel
Posted on September 11, 2008The AALS Property Law Section invites junior property scholars to submit works in progress for a junior scholars panel at the upcoming AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego. The panel will take place on Friday, January 9, from 8:30 a.m....
Atuahene on Property Rights and Past Theft
Posted on September 10, 2008Bernadette Atuahene (Chicago-Kent) has posted Things Fall Apart: The Illegitimacy of Property Rights in the Context of Past Theft on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In many states, past property theft is a volatile political issue that threatens to destabilize nascent...
Call for Papers: Property Ownership and Economic Stability: A Necessary Relationship
Posted on September 08, 2008The editors of the Saint Louis University Public Law Review sent along this interesting call for papers: The Saint Louis University Public Law Review invites abstracts of articles relating to its Spring 2009 symposium theme: Property Ownership and Economic Stability:...
The Latest Twist on Adult Zoning
Posted on September 05, 2008From the NY Times: Two years ago, Ms. Babines, who does computer programming and business analysis in her day job, began offering instruction in pole dancing, power lap dancing, salsa and other forms of dance and fitness, in peoples? homes...
Info on GELPI Takings Conference
Posted on September 03, 2008This year's GELPI Takings Conference will be held at Stanford Law School on November 6-7. The brochure is now available online. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Harding on Perpetual Property
Posted on September 03, 2008Sarah Harding (Chicago Kent) has posted Perpetual Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper explores the emergence of perpetual property in a number of discrete areas of property law: the longevity of servitudes in historic and environmental preservation, the...
Kent on Constitutional Property
Posted on September 03, 2008Michael B. Kent Jr. (John Marshall Atlanta) has posted From 'Preferred Position' to 'Poor Relation': History, Wilkie v. Robbins, and the Status of Property Rights Under the Takings Clause on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article discusses the status of...
Lehavi on Globalization of Land Laws
Posted on September 01, 2008Amnon Lehavi (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah - Radzyner School of Law) has posted The Universal Law of the Land on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Are we witnessing the gradual globalization of national land laws, which have traditionally been considered to be...
Daniels on "Revitalizing Zion: Nineteenth-Century Mormonism and Today's Urban Sprawl"
Posted on September 01, 2008This is a topic about which I know much less that I ought to--and a mighty interesting paper, as well. Professor Brigham Daniels of the University of Houston Law Center has just posted "Revitalizing Zion: Nineteenth-Century Mormonism and Today's Urban...
Somin on Constitutional Property Rights
Posted on August 28, 2008Ilya Somin (George Mason) has posted Taking Property Rights Seriously? The Supreme Court and the 'Poor Relation' of Constitutional Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Over the last twenty-five years, the Supreme Court has expanded protection for constitutional property rights...
Higgins on Legal Impact of Sea Level Rise
Posted on August 28, 2008Megan E. Higgins (Roger Williams) has posted Sea Level Rise Impacts on Beaches and Coastal Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The causes of sea level rise; the impacts to beaches and coastal property; state responses to changes in sea...
Smith from Yale to Harvard
Posted on August 28, 2008Brian Leiter reports that Henry Smith is moving from Yale to Harvard. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Fernandez on Pierson v. Post
Posted on August 27, 2008Angela Fernandez (U. Toronto) has posted The Lost Record of Pierson v. Post, the Famous Fox Case on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Pierson v. Post, the famous fox case, has been reproduced in countless law school casebooks and written about...
Historic Preservation of Brutalist Architecture, With a Bonus RLUIPA Angle!
Posted on August 27, 2008NPR has a great story about controversies arising out of the landmarking of a D.C. church that is an important example of Brutalist architecture. An excerpt: In Washington, D.C., about two blocks from the White House, there's a Christian Science...
Barros on Toward A Model Law of Estates and Future Interests
Posted on August 24, 2008I've posted my most recent article, Toward a Model Law of Estates and Future Interests, on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The American law of estates and future interests is tremendously complex. This complexity is unjustifiable because it serves no modern...
Lovett on Comparisons Between Scottish and American Land Use
Posted on August 21, 2008John A. Lovett (Loyola New Orleans) has posted Meditations on Strathclyde: Controlling Private Land use Restrictions at the Crossroads of Legal Systems on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article presents a comparative study of a pivotal case decided by the...
Chang on Takings Compensation
Posted on August 21, 2008Yun-Chien Chang (NYU) has posted A Framework of Takings Compensation Assessment on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The mainstream literature discusses only the design that the government assesses property value for takings compensation ex post. A few papers propose to let...
I Love My Job
Posted on August 20, 2008First day of Property today. Pierson v. Post, Popov v. Hayashi, and Armory v. Delamirie in a 2-hour block. This is an awesome job. Now if I could only get someone to grade my exams . . . Ben Barros...
Mossoff on Patents as Property
Posted on August 20, 2008Adam Mossoff (George Mason) has posted Patents as Property: Conceptualizing the Exclusive Right(s) in Patent Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The conventional wisdom is that the definition of patents as property has been long settled - patents secure only...
Fort on Laches and Native American Land Title
Posted on August 19, 2008Kathryn Fort (Michigan State) has posted The New Laches: Creating Title Where None Existed on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Tribal land claims are facing a new challenge from an old area of law. Courts have been paying special attention to...
Ellickson on Government Mixed-Income Housing Subsidies
Posted on August 18, 2008Robert C. Ellickson (Yale) has posted The Mediocrity of Government Subsidies to Mixed-Income Housing Projects on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Since the 1970s a new vehicle for the provision of housing assistance--the mixed-income, or inclusionary, project - has flowered in...
Carpenter, Katyal and Riley In Defense of Property
Posted on August 18, 2008Kristen A. Carpenter (Denver); Sonia Katyal (Fordham) and Angela Riley (UCLA) have posted In Defense of Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article advances a comprehensive theory to explain and defend the emergence of indigenous cultural property claims...
And More Burial News--and Building--in Kauai
Posted on August 15, 2008Thanks to Carl Christensen for this article, "Building may continue atop burials,"from the Honolulu Star Bulletin: California businessman Joseph Brescia will be able to continue building his home at Naue Point, at least for now, a circuit judge ruled yesterday...
Stone Age Grave Yard
Posted on August 15, 2008The New York Times has a story on stone age graves found in the Sahara (from the Sahara's "green period"). Very exciting--now what the law, if any, of cemetery access was is unknown and unknowable. But there were some pretty...
Pennsylvania's Curative Amendment
Posted on August 14, 2008The Center For Public Integrity's website has a good article on Pennsyvlania's odd-but-interesting curative challenge process. An excerpt: Land planners, township government officials, and the developer?s attorneys say the villain in the battle over Buckingham Springs is the same ?...
They're having trouble giving this property away
Posted on August 13, 2008A bank in Detroit asked only $1 for a house. But it's worse than that--the bank agreed to pay closing costs, a water bill, and back taxes. It ended up costing them $10,000 to get rid of the property. Sounds...
Brophy on Antebellum Landscape Art and Property Law
Posted on August 13, 2008Our own Alfred L. Brophy (UNC) has posted Property and Progress: Antebellum Landscape Art and Property Law on SSRN. Al has posted on this subject here before. Here's the abstract: Landscape art in the antebellum era (the period before the...
Penalver on Land Virtues
Posted on August 13, 2008Eduardo M. Penalver (Cornell) has posted Land Virtues on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article has two goals. First, I explore some of the descriptive and normative shortcomings of traditional law and economics discussions of the ownership and use of...
Brigham-Kanner Conference at William & Mary
Posted on August 11, 2008I just got the save-the-date card for this year's Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference, which will be held at William & Mary on October 17-18, 2008. Robert Ellickson will be awarded the Brigham-Kanner prize. I'll post more info when it becomes...
Stahl on the Suburb as a Legal Concept
Posted on August 10, 2008The Cardozo Law Review's website has posted an interesting article by Kenneth A. Stahl titled The Suburb as a Legal Concept: The Problem of Organization and the Fate of Municipalities in American Law. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval,...
New Jersey Case Invalidating Blight Taking
Posted on August 10, 2008Ilya Somin has the details on City of Long Branch v. Anzalone at the VC. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Who Owns Animals?
Posted on August 07, 2008Here at propertyprof we talk about things like who owns native culture (and who owns American folks culture--in the form of the game of monopoly)? Now, our friends over at The Slippery Slope have a podcast with animal rights lawyer...
Noble-Allgire on Construction Defects
Posted on August 01, 2008Alice M. Noble-Allgire (Southern Illinois) has posted Notice and Opportunity to Repair Construction Defects: An Imperfect Response to the Perfect Storm on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The U.S. home building industry has been in a financial crisis fueled by a...
Nadler and Diamond on the Psychology of Eminent Domain
Posted on July 31, 2008Janice Nadler and Shari Seidman Diamond (Northwestern) have posted Eminent Domain and the Psychology of Property Rights: Proposed Use, Subjective Attachment, and Taker Identity on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v...
Salkin on Smart Growth
Posted on July 31, 2008Patricia Salkin (Albany) has posted Smart Growth and the Greening of Comprehensive Plans and Land Use Regulations on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Global warming, climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the carbon footprint, and going green are just some...
Forbes Cave Discussion
Posted on July 30, 2008Thanks to Carl Christensen of the University of Hawaii law school for this link to an article in Museum, the publication of the American Association of Museums, on the recent controversy over repatriation under NAGPRA of the "Forbes Cave" materials,....
Boston's Suburban Property
Posted on July 29, 2008The Boston Globe has an interesting story about a dispute centered on a 210-acre plot owned by Boston in the suburbs of Woburn and Burlington: When Mary Cummings bequeathed 210 acres of old farmland in Woburn and Burlington to the...
Bertacchini, De Mot and Depoorter on Commons, Anticommons and Semicommons
Posted on July 28, 2008Enrico Bertacchini (University of Turin), Jef De Mot (Ghent University), and Ben Depoorter (U. Miami and Ghent University) have posted Never Two Without Three: Commons, Anticommons and Semicommons on SSRN. Here's the abstract: A semicommons regime exists when the efficient...
Update on the Trees v. the Solar Panels
Posted on July 27, 2008A while back, we noted an interesting California case that involved a conflict between redwoods and solar panels. The Times has an update on the story. An excerpt: More than six months after two Santa Clara residents were convicted under...
Conference in Honor of Morton Horwitz
Posted on July 25, 2008This morning's email brings the program for a conference in honor of Morton Horwitz, which will be held at Harvard Law School this September 26 and 27. It is sponsored by Harvard Law School, The Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law...
Wolf on Euclid
Posted on July 23, 2008Propertyprofs will want to check out Michael Allan Wolf's new book The Zoning of America: Euclid v. Ambler, which is appearing next month in the University Press of Kansas' important series on Landmark Law Cases. Here is the description from...
Affordable Housing in the News
Posted on July 17, 2008From the Philadelphia Inquirer: Saying new affordable-housing obligations would force suburban towns to build beyond their capacity, a coalition of nearly 200 mayors said yesterday they would challenge the regulations in court. The dispute centers on state rules, unveiled in...
Bogart on Good Faith in Commercial Leasing
Posted on July 17, 2008Daniel B. Bogart (Chapman) has posted Good Faith and Fair Dealing in Commercial Leasing: The Right Doctrine in the Wrong Transaction on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Professor Bogart was keynote lecturer for the 2007 Kratovil Conference Real Estate Law and...
Two By Fee
Posted on July 17, 2008John Fee (BYU) has posted two articles that have been published in the last couple of years on SSRN: Eminent Domain and the Sanctity of Home The Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. New London has caused alarm over how...
Townsend Gard and Goda on Virtual Property
Posted on July 17, 2008Elizabeth Townsend Gard (Tulane) and Rachel Goda (Seattle) have posted The Fizzy Experiment: Second Life, Virtual Property and a 1L Property Course on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This work is an attempt to sort out the relationship between virtual property...
Oil Refinery v. Farms
Posted on July 16, 2008CNN.com has a story about a controversial oil refinery proposed in South Dakota, and the attendant land-use issues. The story reminds me of the issues raised in Heller's book on the Gridlock Economy. The United States needs new refineries, but...
Michael Heller's The Gridlock Economy
Posted on July 14, 2008This past weekend, I read Michael Heller's new book The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives. The "this past weekend" part of the previous sentence says a lot of good things about the...
Salkin on Land Use and Natural Disaster Mitigation
Posted on July 09, 2008Patricial Salkin (Albany) has posted Sustainability at the Edge: The Opportunity and Responsibility of Local Governments to Most Effectively Plan for Natural Disaster Mitigation on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The traditional link between disaster mitigation and local land use planning...
Alexander on Public Housing Reform in Chicago
Posted on July 07, 2008Lisa A. Alexander (Wisconsin) has posted A Sociolegal History of Public Housing Reform in Chicago on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This essay summarizes and compares Alexander Polikoff's Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing, and the Black Ghetto and...
Independence Day In Hillsborough, NC
Posted on July 05, 2008What could be better for someone who studies history and cemeteries than an Independence Day visit to the grave of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence?! Not much, I imagine. Hence, I set off yesterday morning to...
God and Land at Albany
Posted on July 02, 2008The Albany Government Law Review and Government Law Center at Albany Law School are cosponsoring a conference called God and the Land: Conflicts Over Land Use and Religious Freedom. The conference will be held at Albany Law from October 1-3,...
Property Prof as Graduate Student
Posted on July 01, 2008I'm guesting this month over at PrawfsBlawg. As some readers know, for the past two years I've been doing graduate work in philosophy at the University of Maryland. I just put up a post at Prawfs that talks about doing...
Bromley on Land Formalization
Posted on June 30, 2008The Journal of Land Use Policy has an article in press by Daniel W. Bromley (Wisconsin, Applied Economics) called Formalising Property Relations in the Developing World: The Wrong Prescription for the Wrong Malady. I can't find a link now, but...
Psychology of Heirlooms
Posted on June 26, 2008I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about people's psychological relationships with their property. On this subject, today's NY Times has a fascinating story about family heirlooms and the complex feelings that they generate. Ben Barros Photo from Wikicommons...
Heller and the Home
Posted on June 26, 2008I just skimmed through the Supreme Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller. I was struck by how narrow the opinion is, and how much it is focused on self defense in the home. We talk a lot about homes here...
Time and Family Property
Posted on June 26, 2008Because here at propertyprof we sometimes talk about how mere passage of time confers a certain dignity on property, however insignificant it started out, I thought you'd find this article from the New York Times of some amusement: it's advice...
Two from Smith
Posted on June 26, 2008Henry E. Smith (Yale) has posted two new articles on SSRN. Community and Custom in Property Community custom has played a limited but important role in the law of property. In addition to a few major historic examples such as...
Dagan on Just and Unjust Enrichments
Posted on June 24, 2008Hanoch Dagan (Tel Aviv) has posted Just and Unjust Enrichments on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In exploring the most fundamental question in restitution theory of what separates just from unjust enrichments, this essay undertakes three interconnected missions...
Justice Alito and Property Rights
Posted on June 23, 2008Lyle Denniston at Scotusblog notes that Justice Alito took the unusual step of noting that he would have voted to grant cert in Goldstein v. Pataki, the public use case involving the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. As Ilya Somin...
Should Homes Be Given Extra Protection From Eminent Domain?
Posted on June 23, 2008I was facing a grading deadline and missed this when it came out, but Eduardo Penalver and Ilya Somin had an interesting blogospheric discussion about whether homes should be given additional protection from eminent domain relative to other types of....
Third Anniversary of Kelo
Posted on June 23, 2008Duly noted by Ilya Somin at the VC. Ilya argues, among other things, that Kelo was an improvement on Berman and Midkiff. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Specific Performance of the Seattle Sonics' Lease
Posted on June 22, 2008Out in Seattle Judge Marsha Pechman (W.D. Wash) has been conducting a trial over whether the Seattle Sonics must abide their lease with of the city's KeyArena for the next two years or whether they can move immediately to their...
Rose on Public Infrastructure and Environmental Resources
Posted on June 20, 2008Carol M. Rose (Arizona) has posted Big Roads, Big Rights: Varieties of Public Infrastructure and Their Impact on Environmental Resources on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Two types of public infrastructure-roads and property rights-are often thought critical to economic development; this...
Parent on Takings Constraints
Posted on June 20, 2008Colin P. Parent (DLA Piper) has posted Takings Constraints: Mechanisms to Minimize the Uncompensated Increment and Limit the Government's Power to Take Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The breadth of takings scholarship has left useful ideas diluted amongst an...
Holdouts and Personal Values
Posted on June 20, 2008Eduardo Penalver highlights a great story about a woman in Seattle who refused to sell out to private developers. The story features a great holdout photo of the woman's home surrounded by new development. Ben Barros [Comments are held for...
Who Owns Jefferson's Grave?
Posted on June 19, 2008This ranks right up there with Who's Buried in Grants Tomb! In light of the controversy over access to Jefferson's grave, which I've been following and gotten involved in a little bit, I now have a question that's worthy of...
The Governance of Gramercy Park
Posted on June 19, 2008This morning's New York Times brings a story about the governance of Gramercy Park--which is so strict that few people use it. Shades of Poe's The Domain of Arnheim?! Ah, what would Thomas Jefferson have to say about this (or...
GELPI Takings Conference Save-The-Date
Posted on June 18, 2008I recently received this notice from GELPI: On November 6-7, 2008, the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute at Georgetown University Law Center and Stanford Law School?s Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program will host the 11th Annual...
New PLF Blog on The Endangered Species Act
Posted on June 17, 2008This is outside of my main area of interest, but those of you interested in environmental issues might want to check out the Pacific Legal Foundation's new blog on the ESA. The PLF folks, of course, have a clear agenda,...
Epstein on Kelo
Posted on June 17, 2008Richard A. Epstein (Chicago) has posted Public Use in a Post-Kelo World on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The aftermath of Kelo gives rise to urgent land use issues, both theoretical and historical. On the former, I argue that the analysts...
Penalver on the Ambiguities of Gentrification
Posted on June 17, 2008Over at Prawfs, Eduardo Penalver has a great post on gentrification. Eduardo's post is reacting to a story from the NY Times on gentrification in Harlem. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in...
Landlord Conversion of 20-unit Building Into Private Residence
Posted on June 17, 2008Over at the Co-op, Frank Pasquale has an interesting post on a NYC dispute featuring a landlord who is trying to convert a 20-unit building into a private residence. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be...
Marcello on Community Benefit Agreements
Posted on June 16, 2008David Marcello (Tulane) has posted Community Benefit Agreements: New Vehicle for Investment in America's Neighborhoods on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) are a relatively new feature of the land use planning process for major public-private developments...
Scarborough on Property Purchase v. Payment in Kind in Taxation of Property Exchanges
Posted on June 16, 2008Robert H. Scarborough (Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer) has posted Property Purchase or Payment in Kind? The Oxford Paper Conundrum on SSRN. Here's the abstract: If a taxpayer undertakes an obligation or assumes a liability in exchange for property, how is the...
McLaughlin on Eminent Domain, Open Space, and Electric Transmission Corridors
Posted on June 16, 2008Nancy A. McLaughlin (Utah) has posted Condemning Open Space: Making Way for National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (or Not) on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorizes the Secretary of Energy to "designate any geographic area...
Chopping down trees that are monuments
Posted on June 13, 2008This story of trees carved by GIs during World War II being cut down is heart-breaking. I'm sorry to see trees--especially ones that are monuments--cut down. Alfred Brophy
Griffey Baseball Dispute
Posted on June 09, 2008Looks like we might have another case about everyone's favorite fugitive resource. From CNN.com: Controversy ensued in the stands following the home run. Justin Kimball, a 25-year-old from Miami, said he caught the home run ball, put it in a...
Demsetz on Frischmann and Toward a Theory of Property Rights
Posted on June 06, 2008The newest issue of the Review of Law and Economics includes an essay by Harold Demsetz (UCLA) titled Frischmann?s View of ?Toward a Theory of Property Rights?. Here's the abstract: In this brief article, Professor Harold Demsetz defends his seminal....
Ostrow on Judicial Review and RLUIPA
Posted on June 05, 2008Ashira Ostrow (Hofstra) has posted Judicial Review of Local Land Use Decisions: Lessons from RLUIPA on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article questions whether traditional judicial deference to local land use regulators is justified in light of the highly discretionary,...
Albany Seeking PropertyProf
Posted on June 03, 2008ALBANY LAW SCHOOL invites applications for three or more tenure-track positions beginning in the fall of 2009. Appointment will be made at the assistant, associate or full professor level, depending on experience. While exceptionally talented applicants will be considered regardless...
Penalver on Land Virtues
Posted on June 02, 2008Eduardo M. Penalver (Cornell) has posted Land Virtues on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article has two goals. First, I explore some of the descriptive and normative shortcomings of traditional law and economics discussions of the ownership and use of...
McLaughlin on Condeming Conservation Easements
Posted on June 02, 2008Nancy A. McLaughlin (Utah) has posted Condemning Conservation Easements: Protecting the Public Interest and Investment in Conservation on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The public is investing substantial financial and other resources in conservation easements and the conservation and historic values...
Konomark and the extension of Aloha Jurisprudence
Posted on May 31, 2008While Alitorros is up in Montreal enjoying Law and Society, I've been sweating out the move to Chapel Hill. Now I'm in a pet friendly hotel in Chapel Hill, getting caught up on my blog reading.... Via Eric Johnson over...
Off to Law & Society
Posted on May 28, 2008I'm heading to Montreal for the Law & Society Conference, which will feature a great set of property panels. Internet access permitting, I'll try and post from there. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some...
The Latest Talk about Cultural Property
Posted on May 27, 2008... from the New York Times, discussing James Cuno's Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage, just published by Princeton University Press. Cuno is also editor of Whose Muse? Art Museums and the Public Trust published...
GELPI Report on Takings Legislation
Posted on May 27, 2008The Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute has released a report on the impact of takings legislation. Here is a summary of the findings: The major findings of the report are that the takings agenda has undermined community protections by....
Hamilton from Chicago-Kent to Illinois
Posted on May 22, 2008According to Brian Leiter, property prof Dan Hamilton is moving from Chicago Kent to the University of Illinois. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Carillo on ARMs
Posted on May 21, 2008Jo J. Carrillo (Hastings) has posted Dangerous Loans: Consumer Challenges to Adjustable Rate Mortgages on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article analyzes the relationship between innovative mortgage products, like adjustable-rate mortgages, and the first wave of consumer legal challenges brought...
Davies on Assured Supply Laws
Posted on May 21, 2008Lincoln Davies (Utah) has posted Just a Big, 'Hot Fuss'? Assessing the Value of Connecting Suburban Sprawl, Land Use, and Water Rights Through Assured Supply Laws on SSRN. Here's the abstract: States and localities increasingly recognize the need to link...
Heller and Hills on Land Assembly Districts
Posted on May 19, 2008Dan Kelly's response (see post below) reminded me that the Harvard Law Review has posted Land Assembly Districts, by Michael Heller (Columbia) and Rick Hills (NYU), online. Here's the abstract: Eminent domain for economic development is both attractive and appalling...
Two by Kelly
Posted on May 19, 2008Daniel B. Kelly (Olin Fellow, Yale) has posted two pieces on eminent domain on SSRN. They are: The Limitations of Majoritarian Land Assembly In their article, Land Assembly Districts, Professors Michael Heller and Rick Hills address the collective action problem...
Property in Space
Posted on May 19, 2008The Boston Globe has a great article on property in space. It raises a number of interesting theoretical issues about property, and might make a great teaching tool. Hat tip: Ilya at the VC. Ben Barros Asteroid Photo From NASA...
More Black Market Body Parts
Posted on May 17, 2008From CNN.com: The former head of UCLA's cadaver program and a businessman were indicted Friday on eight felony counts involving black market sales of human body parts. Henry Reid, the former director of UCLA's willed body program, allegedly sold donated...
Sprankling on Owning the Center of the Earth
Posted on May 15, 2008The UCLA Law Review has posted John G. Sprankling's Owning the Center of the Earth online. Here's the abstract: How far below the earth?s surface do property rights extend? The conventional wisdom is that a landowner holds title to everything...
Semeraro on Sweet Land of Property
Posted on May 14, 2008Steven Semeraro (Thomas Jefferson) has posted Sweet Land of Property?: The History, Symbols, Rhetoric, and Theory Behind the Ordering of the Rights to Liberty and Property in the Constitutional Lexicon on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article critiques the property...
Property and Progress: Antebellum Landscape Art and Property Law
Posted on May 12, 2008(Doing some cross-posting from thefacultylounge.org this morning....) My time in Tuscaloosa is rapidly drawing to a close. Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending graduation and on Thursday I'm going to give a lecture on the relationship between landscape art...
Gardner on International Application of Regulatory Takings
Posted on May 12, 2008Royal C. Gardner (Stetson) has posted Taking the Principle of Just Compensation Abroad: Private Property Rights, National Sovereignty, and the Cost of Environmental Protection on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Part I of this article provides a brief background of the...
DePaul Conference on Acquiring and Maintaining Collections of Cultural Objects
Posted on May 09, 2008This fall, on October 16, DePaul Law School's Center for Intellectual Property Law and Information Technology and the Program in Cultural Heritage Law will host a conference on "Acquiring and Maintaining Collections of Cultural Objects: Challenges Confronting American Museums in...
Antiquities under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War
Posted on May 09, 2008The University of Chicago's Cultural Policy Center has just released Antiquities under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War. Its website describes the book: As Saddam Hussein's government fell in April 2003, news accounts detailed the pillaging of from...
Frishmann on Environmental Infrastructure
Posted on May 09, 2008Brett M. Frischmann (Loyola Chicago) has posted Environmental Infrastructure on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This essay explores how my recent work on infrastructure and commons applies to environmental resources. Part I briefly describes the core idea, which is developed extensively...
McCall on North Carolina Eminent Domain
Posted on May 09, 2008Jamie R. McCall (UNC-Chapel Hill School of Gov't) has posted The Use of Eminent Domain by North Carolina Counties: Historical Patterns, Current Trends, and Decision Variables on SSRN. Here's the abstract: A 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office states...
Two From Dana
Posted on May 07, 2008David Dana (Northwestern) has posted two new papers on SSRN: Exclusionary Eminent Domain This Article explores the phenomenon of "exclusionary eminent domain" - the exercise of eminent domain that has the effect of excluding low-income households from an otherwise predominantly...
Power on Constitutional Property
Posted on May 07, 2008Garrett Power (Univ. of Maryland) has posted Constitutional Property' a Chronicle of the Construction of a Concept on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In the American constitutional system the sovereign has the power to enact "regulations which are necessary to the...
Brick by Brick
Posted on May 06, 2008Thanks to Florence Roisman for pointing me to Brick by Brick: A Civil Rights Story, a film about housing and education discrimination in Yonkers. According to Florence, the housing issues predominate, and it might make an interesting addition to property...
Katz on Exclusion and Exclusivity
Posted on May 06, 2008Larissa M. Katz (Queen's University) has posted Exclusion and Exclusivity in Property Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In this article, I propose a model for understanding the concept of ownership that I call the exclusivity model. Like many of...
Teaching Order -- Reprise of Where Should Servitudes Go?
Posted on May 05, 2008Back in January, I noted that I was going to change my coverage order this Spring. Rather than doing Real Estate Transactions - Recording - Nuisance - Sevitudes - Zoning, I put servitudes first. Doing servitudes did have some advantages...
Old cemetery poses grave dilemma for buyers of Vt. farm
Posted on May 04, 2008Thanks to my colleague Norman Stein for pointing me to this case of cemetery law. From the AP story: The 130-acre property was exactly what Michel Guite and his family wanted: an old Vermont farm with mountain views, rolling hills...
Barr, Mullainathan, and Shafir on Behaviorally Informed Home Mortgage Regulation
Posted on May 02, 2008Michael S. Barr (U. Michigan), Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard), and Eldar Shafir (Princeton) have posted Behaviorally Informed Home Mortgage Regulation on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Choosing a mortgage is one of the biggest financial decisions an American consumer will make...
Oliveri on Landlord-Tenant Issues and Anti-Illegal Immigrant Ordinances
Posted on May 02, 2008Rigel Christine Oliveri (U. Missouri) has posted Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Landlords, Latinos, Anti-Illegal Immigrant Ordinances, and Housing Discrimination on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In the face of federal inability to effectively police our national borders and...
Property Section Call For Papers: Hernando de Soto and Property in a Market Economy
Posted on April 28, 2008Call for Papers?Hernando de Soto and Property in a Market Economy Extended Program of the AALS Section on Property Law The Section on Property Law has proposed a three-hour extended program on ?Hernando de Soto and Property in a Market...
Eminent Domain's Impact on Minorities
Posted on April 28, 2008David T. Beito (Univ. of Alabama) and Ilya Somin (George Mason) have an interesting op-ed on the subject in the Orlando Sentinel. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Garnett on Taking Without Touching
Posted on April 25, 2008Nicole Stelle Garnett (Notre Dame) has posted 'No Taking Without a Touching?' Questions from an Armchair Originalist on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper is an invited contribution to the Bernard Siegan Memorial Conference on Economic Liberties, Property Rights, and...
Property Panels at Law and Society
Posted on April 23, 2008Here is a list of property-related panels for the upcoming Law & Society Conference in Montreal. If you're aware of a panel or paper that might be of interest to propertyprofs that I've missed, please leave a comment and I'll...
Villazor on Blood Quantum Laws
Posted on April 22, 2008Rose Cuison Villazor (SMU) has posted Blood Quantum Land Laws and the Race Versus Political Dilemma on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Modern equal protection doctrine treats laws that make distinctions on the basis of indigeneity defined on blood quantum terms...
Eagle on Kelo, Directed Growth, and Municipal Industrial Policy
Posted on April 22, 2008Steven J. Eagle (George Mason) has posted Kelo, Directed Growth, and Municipal Industrial Policy on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article explores trends towards increased local government land use regulation to spur economic development and towards partnering with private redevelopers...
Salkin and Lavine on RLUIPA and Federalism
Posted on April 22, 2008Patricial Salkin and Amy Lavine (Albany Law School) have posted The Genesis of RLUIPA and Federalism: Evaluating the Creation of a Federal Statutory Right and its Impact on Local Government on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In 2000, Congress passed, and....
Is a 26-bathroom Mansion a Single Family Home?
Posted on April 21, 2008CNN has a story about this pressing question. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
The Latest on the Machu Picchu Artifacts
Posted on April 17, 2008We've been following this story for a long time. The Yale Daily News is now reporting a change in Peru's attitude towards the return of artifacts that Yale professor Hiram Bingham III excavated from Machu Picchu in the early twentieth...
Epstein on Didden
Posted on April 16, 2008Richard Epstein has an opinion piece on Didden v. Port Chester and the general issue of public use. HT: Ilya Somin. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Claeys on Law & Econ v. Natural Property Rights
Posted on April 16, 2008Eric Claeys (George Mason) has posted Jefferson Meets Coase: Land-Use Torts, Law and Economics, and Natural Property Rights on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In tort scholarship, conventional wisdom assumes that economic analysis explains doctrine more determinately than philosophical analysis...
Lewyn on Five Myths About Sprawl
Posted on April 15, 2008Michael Lewyn (Florida Coastal) has posted Five Myths About Sprawl on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In Sprawl: A Compact History, Robert Bruegmann, an art historian, has painted a superficially convincing case for the status quo, asserting that sprawl is "a...
Anderson on Zoning Board Composition
Posted on April 15, 2008Jerry L. Anderson (Drake University Law School) has posted A Study of American Zoning Board Composition and Public Attitudes Toward Zoning Issues on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In the United States, many important land use decisions are made, at least...
Bonfield, Chused, and Tracht to New York Law School
Posted on April 11, 2008Brian Leiter is reporting that: In addition to Gerald Korngold from Case Western, New York Law School has also made (or recently made) tenured hires of Lloyd Bonfield (property, EU law, legal history) from Tulae University, Richard Chused (property, copyright,...
Colburn on Morality and Green Building
Posted on April 11, 2008Jamison Colburn (Western New England) has posted Solidarity and Subsidiarity in a Changing Climate: Green Building as Legal and Moral Obligation on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This essay grew out of a symposium on Catholic social thought. It makes the...
The Progressive Case for Water Markets
Posted on April 11, 2008Jonathan Adler has an interesting post on the subject. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Jones and Brosnan on Law, Biology, and Property
Posted on April 09, 2008Owen D. Jones (Vanderbilt) and Sarah F. Brosnan (Georgia State) have posted Law, Biology, and Property: A New Theory of the Endowment Effect on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Recent work at the intersection of law and behavioral biology has suggested...
How Quickly We Forget
Posted on April 09, 2008Thanks to Ann Bartow for this story ("Capitol statues switched as subjects' fame fades") about the changing of the statutes in Congress. Each state gets two statutes, but over time the states like to change out the people they display....
Morriss on State Responses to Kelo
Posted on April 08, 2008Andrew P. Morriss (University of Illinois) has posted Symbol or Substance? An Empirical Assessment of State Responses to Kelo on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The Kelo decision provoked considerable legislative activity as 46 states adopted legislation on eminent domain in...
Cemetery Law: The Reburial of Mark Rothko?
Posted on April 08, 2008Close on the heals of the New York Times' discussion of a conflict over Thomas Jefferson's grave, (which I discussed here) we have news of a dispute over the possible exhumation and reburial of Mark Rothko. Kathryn Shattuck's article begins:...
Korngold from Case Western to New York Law School
Posted on April 08, 2008Gerald Korngold, the McCurdy Professor of Law at Case Western, will join the faculty of New York Law School in the fall. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Solar Panels vs. Trees!
Posted on April 07, 2008The New York Times this morning has a fascinating story about two neighbors, eight redwood trees, a solar panel, and - yes - a criminal prosecution for violating a statute called the Solar Shade Act. This has it all: a...
On-Line Ad Housing Discrimination Case
Posted on April 04, 2008Eugene Volokh has a post on Fair Housing Council v. Roomates.com. The case is mostly about some on-line immunity issues, but an underlying issue about expressing preferences for roomates will be a familar one to propertyprofs. Ben Barros [Comments are...
Rock Star Brophy From Alabama to UNC!!!
Posted on April 04, 2008This has been a poorly kept secret for a while now, but since Brian Leiter is reporting it, we can now announce that our own certified rock star Al Brophy will join the faculty at UNC Chapel Hill next year....
New Book on Post-Kelo Eminent Domain
Posted on April 04, 2008Today's mail brought my copy of Private Property, Community Development, and Eminent Domain, edited by Robin Paul Malloy. The book contains essays by Tom Allen, Carol Brown, Eric Claeys, Rachel Godsil, Robin Malloy, Marc Pairier, David Simunovich, Jim Smith, and...
Public Use Cert Petition
Posted on April 02, 2008Over at Scotusblog, Lyle Denniston has a post on a cert petition to the Supreme Court presenting some post-Kelo public use issues. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Tax Consequences of Postmortem Right of Publicity
Posted on April 02, 2008Mitchell M. Gans, Bridget J. Crawford & Jonathan G. Blattmachr have an interesting piece in the Yale Law Journal's Pocket Part called Postmortem Rights of Publicity: The Federal Estate Tax Consequences of New State-Law Property Rights. Here's the intro: California...
Foreclosure Road Trips
Posted on April 02, 2008The Washington Post has an interesting story (free regist. required) about bus tours of foreclosed properties by potential buyers. An excerpt: A new form of sightseeing is catching on in the Washington suburbs, offering investment advice, free cookies and some...
Rosser on Property Consequences of Indians
Posted on April 02, 2008Ezra Rosser (American U.) has posted Protecting Non-Indians from Harm: The Property Consequences of Indians on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article is an exploration of the assumption, last made by the U.S. Supreme Court in City of Sherrill v....
Supreme Court Decision in New Jersey v. Delaware
Posted on April 01, 2008Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Delaware in its riparian use dispute with New Jersey. The New York Times has an article on the case. The opinions are available here. Choice quote from the Times about Justice Scalia's...
Property in the Lord of the Rings
Posted on March 31, 2008Ilya Somin, the libertarian counterpart to GMU's natural law duo of Mossoff and Claeys, has a post at the VC on Property in the Lord of the Rings. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some...
Mossoff to George Mason
Posted on March 31, 2008According to David Bernstein at the VC, Adam Mossoff is moving from Michigan State to George Mason. Will the natural law duo of Mossoff and Claeys eventually challenge Yale's Smith and Merrill for property theory supremacy? Stay tuned to find...
More cemetery law: Thomas Jefferson's Grave
Posted on March 31, 2008Today's New York Times brings this story about the Jefferson family cemetery. It is "owned by the lineal descendants of Thomas Jefferson. Last year about 250 people with ancestral ties to Monticello ? including descendants of Jefferson and Sally Hemings,...
Merrill to Yale
Posted on March 28, 2008Brian Leiter is reporting that Tom Merrill is moving from Columbia to Yale, joining his frequent collaborator Henry Smith. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
More on What Virtual Property Can Do For Property: The Problem of Analogy
Posted on March 27, 2008In my string of posts, I'm trying to explain how the study of virtual property can clarify our thinking about property generally and intangible rights in particular. In my last post, I explained some of the analytical problems in designating...
Schwarcz on Disclosure and the Subprime Crisis
Posted on March 26, 2008Steven L. Schwarcz (Duke) has posted Disclosure's Failure in the Subprime Mortgage Crisis on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This symposium article examines how disclosure, the regulatory focus of the federal securities laws, has failed to achieve transparency in the subprime...
Border Fence Eminent Domain Issues
Posted on March 26, 2008A number of disputes have arisen in Texas about the use of eminent domain to take property surrunding the new border fence. The judge on some of the cases recently ordered the government to negotiate over price with the property...
Buying Peace and Quiet in Yellowstone
Posted on March 25, 2008The New York Times has an editorial. Alfred Brophy
Tate on Testamentary Freedom
Posted on March 25, 2008Joshua C. Tate (SMU) has posted Caregiving and the Case for Testamentary Freedom on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Almost all U.S. states allow individuals to disinherit their descendants for any reason or no reason, but most of the world's legal...
Ruhl on Ecosystem Services and the ACF Dispute
Posted on March 24, 2008J.B. Ruhl (Florida State) has posted Equitable Apportionment of Ecosystem Services: New Water Law for a New Water Age on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article examines the interstate water controversy between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama regarding allocation of water...
Asoni on Property Rights and Economic Growth
Posted on March 24, 2008Andrea Asoni (U. Chicago Dep't of Econ.) has posted Protection of Property Rights and Growth as Political Equilibria on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This paper presents a survey of the literature on property rights and economic growth. It discusses different...
Fennell on Slices and Lumps
Posted on March 20, 2008Lee Fennell (Chicago) has posted Slices and Lumps on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This brief essay, delivered in slightly different form as the 2008 Coase Lecture at the University of Chicago Law School, addresses problems involving the aggregation and division...
Is "Intangible" a Property Category?
Posted on March 19, 2008I think not. I was happy to get a comment on my last post, and the commenter suggested that the category "intangible" will disappear with respect to "virtual" money. I had two thoughts when I read the comment: first, "hmm,...
Epstein at Prawfs
Posted on March 19, 2008Richard Epstein is blogging at Prawfsblawg about his new book on takings. Looks to be a very interesting conversation. Check it out! Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Lefcoe on Kelo and Blight
Posted on March 18, 2008George Lefcoe (USC) has posted Redevelopment Takings after Kelo: What's Blight Got to Do with it? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Cities large and small across the country are utilizing redevelopment powers to become land developers, transforming underutilized areas into...
A Primer on the Subprime Mess
Posted on March 18, 2008In cartoon form (click through to the power point - be warned that the investment bankers speak in the language they use in real life, which is high on four-letter content). UPDATE: It is also available here (click on the...
Real Estate Transactions Section Call for Papers
Posted on March 17, 2008Here is the call for papers for the Real Estate Transactions Section panel for next year's AALS conference. The Property Section call will come out in the next few weeks. Call for Papers?Real Estate Transactions in Troubled Times Joint Extended...
Subprime Lawsuits by Cleveland and Baltimore
Posted on March 17, 2008I've been thinking about the nuisance lawsuit that Cleveland filed against a series of subprime lenders and the Baltimore lawsuit filed about Wells Fargo, based on the Fair Housing Act. Wall Street Journal Blog talks about them here, as have...
Sex Beds and Virtual Land: What can Virtual Property Do for Property?
Posted on March 14, 2008Thanks for the introduction, Ben! Ben's description of me as someone "who also teaches Property" is just right; I started teaching Property after over ten years of teaching upper-level Property-related courses such as Secured Transactions, Bankruptcy, and Electronic Commerce...
Guest Blogger: Juliet Moringiello
Posted on March 14, 2008I'm delighted that my colleague Juliet Moringiello will be joining us for a guest stint. Juliet is a cyberlaw and commercial law expert who also teaches property. Among other things, she will be blogging about virtual property and approaching property...
Alexander on The Social-Obligation Norm in American Property Law
Posted on March 14, 2008Greg Alexander (Cornell) has posted The Social-Obligation Norm in American Property Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article seeks to provide in property legal theory an alternative to law-and-economics theory, the dominant mode of theorizing about property in contemporary...
Schwarcz on Risk and the Subprime Crisis
Posted on March 14, 2008Steven L. Schwarcz (Duke) has posted Markets, Systemic Risk, and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The subprime mortgage crisis is undermining financial market stability and has the potential to cause a true systemic breakdown...
Foldvary on Land Rent Taxation
Posted on March 14, 2008Fred E. Foldvary (Santa Clara - Department of Econ) has posted The Ultimate Tax Reform: Public Revenue from Land Rent on SSRN. Here's the abstract: An ideal public revenue policy respects a person's right to privacy, does not discourage work...
Eagle on Common Law and the Environment
Posted on March 12, 2008Steven J. Eagle (George Mason) has posted The Role of the Common Law in Defining and Protecting the Environment: A Prolegomenon on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article surveys contemporary issues in defining and protecting the environment. It stresses the...
Cultural Property Dispute Between Sweden and ...
Posted on March 10, 2008Amidst all of the earth-shaking news about the governor of New York, it's easy to miss this: today's New York Times brings news of a dispute over 350 year old spoils of war captured by Sweden from Denmark--but in a...
Civil Rights Owner v. KKK Life Tenant
Posted on March 10, 2008From CNN.com: A black civil rights activist is fighting to close a store that sells KKK robes and T-shirts emblazoned with racial slurs. David Kennedy is confident he can make it happen. After all, he says he owns the building....
Oust Tenants, Convert to Condo
Posted on March 09, 2008The Washington Post has a lengthy story on a loop-hole in a DC statute that limits the conversion of apartments to condos: if there are no tenants, you don't need their permission to convert. Here's a taste of the article:...
Johnson on Zoning and Sex Offenders
Posted on March 07, 2008Asmara T. Johnson (Thurgood Marshall School of Law) has posted In the Zone: Sex Offenders and the Ten Percent Solutions on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article challenges prevailing judicial orthodoxy that many sex offender residency restrictions are constitutional under...
Property and Psychology Panel at APLS
Posted on March 04, 2008Tomorrow I'm off to the American Psychology-Law Society Conference to take part in a panel titled A Psychological Perspective on Property Law: Current Topics and Future Directions. The panel was put together by Jeremy Blumenthal (Syracuse). Here's the panel abstract:...
Lewinsohn-Zamir on More v. Less Property
Posted on March 04, 2008Daphna Lewinsohn-Zamir (Hebrew University) has posted More Is Not Always Better than Less: An Exploration in Property Law on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The common intuition that more is better than less often lies at the heart of arguments regarding....
Bavan on Housing Discrimination and "Color" of Voice
Posted on March 04, 2008Meena S. Bavan (HUD) has posted Does Housing Discrimination Exist Based on the 'Color' of an Individual's Voice? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Does housing discrimination exist based on the "color" of an individual's voice? Linguistic profiling occurs when people...
Singer on Property Norms and the Construction of Externalities of Ownership
Posted on March 03, 2008Joseph Singer of Harvard Law School has posted How Property Norms Construct the Externalities of Ownership on ssrn. Professor Singer's abstract reads: The relation between property and sovereignty is a contested one. Traditional norms identify the protection of both persons...
Weiser and Hatfield on Property in Spectrum
Posted on March 03, 2008Phil Weiser and Dale N. Hatfield (Univ. of Colorado) have posted Spectrum Policy Reform and the Next Frontier of Property Rights on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The scarcity of wireless spectrum reflects a costly failure of regulation. In practice, large...
Right to Sunlight in California
Posted on February 29, 2008From CNN: In an environmental dispute seemingly scripted for eco-friendly California, a man asked prosecutors to file charges against his neighbors because their towering redwoods blocked sunlight to his backyard solar panels. But the couple next door insisted they should...
Levitt Bankruptcy
Posted on February 29, 2008NPR has an interesting story on the bankruptcy of Levitt and Sons, the firm that developed Levittown. The story also discussed the impact of the bankruptcy on buyers in a Levitt project in Florida: Among those customers is Bill Quattrocchi,...
Late 1800's San Francisco Spite Fence
Posted on February 28, 2008I have a thing for spite fence cases. My Mom sent along a link to this 1902 story (with photos) about a great spite fence (40 feet tall!!!) in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood. As an added bonus for propertyprofs,...
Barros on Property and Freedom
Posted on February 26, 2008I've posted Property and Freedom on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Private property is often defended on the basis that it promotes individual freedom. Discussion of this subject has typically taken place in the context of contentious debates over the legitimacy...
Turnipseed on Deathbed Marriages
Posted on February 25, 2008Terry L. Turnipseed (Syracuse) has posted How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Count the Days: Deathbed Marriages in America on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Should you be able to marry someone who has only days to live? If so,...
Nelson on Fairness and Priority in Foreclosure Purchases
Posted on February 24, 2008Grant Nelson (Pepperdine) has posted The Foreclosure Purchase by the Equity of Redemption Holder or Other Junior Interests: When Should Principles of Fairness and Morality Trump Normal Priority Rules? on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article explores an issue that...
Advice to Law Journals, Part 25
Posted on February 20, 200825 Keep up with work or it will overwhelm you. Actually, this is great advice for academic life in general. And the image I use for this is from the book where I first learned this years ago--the Little Prince,...
War and Peace: Art and Cultural Heritage Law in the 21st Century
Posted on February 19, 2008If I could be anywhere on March 4, I'd be at the Cardozo Public Law, Policy, and Ethics Journal's symposium on War and Peace: Art and Cultural Heritage Law in the 21st Century. The Cardozo Law School website says: Cardozo...
Singer on Normative Methods for Lawyers
Posted on February 19, 2008Joseph William Singer (Harvard) has posted Normative Methods for Lawyers on SSRN. Here's the abstract: How can we defend arguments about what the law should be based on considerations of morality, justice, fairness, liberty, rights, or human values? Are such...
Zoning and the Subprime Crisis
Posted on February 19, 2008Over at the VC, Ilya Somin has a post on possible links between restrictive zoning and the subprime market. I have to say that I'm a bit skeptical. I can see how zoning increases housing prices, but I can't see...
Subprime Blogging
Posted on February 18, 2008Over at Daily Sprawl, Chad Emerson is keeping tabs on various mortgage issues. Folks interested in the subject should check it out. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Singer on Property Norms and Externalities of Ownership
Posted on February 18, 2008Joseph William Singer (Harvard Law School) has posted How Property Norms Construct the Externalities of Ownership on SSRN. Here's the abstract: The relation between property and sovereignty is a contested one. Traditional norms identify the protection of both persons and...
Saxer on Religious Accessory Uses
Posted on February 18, 2008Shelley Ross Saxer (Pepperdine) has posted Faith in Action: Religious Accessory Uses and Land Use Regulation on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This article details the application of constitutional, land use and tax law principles to non-religious facilities and activities, within...
I'm Back
Posted on February 18, 2008Sorry for the lack of posting in the last week. I had the flu for one part of the week, and was on the road for the other. Not a good combo. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so...
Indian Head Rock Dispute
Posted on February 11, 2008The New York Times has the latest on a rock that's claimed by Kentucky and Ohio and has some historical significance. ALB
Honeydripper
Posted on February 10, 2008Saw a fantastic movie last night--John Sayles' latest, Honeydripper. Danny Glover stars as the proprietor (Tyrone "Pinetop" Purvis) of a failing blues club in Harmony Alabama in 1950. Never been to Harmony, but I take it from mapquest that it's...
South Carolina Monument In Hamburg
Posted on February 10, 2008Thanks to Ann Bartow for a pointer to this story from the South Carolina newspaper The State on the Hamburg, South Carolina massacre of 1876 and the monument that's already there--as well as efforts at historical preservation in Hamburg. Here's...
Ball from Penn State to Rutgers-Newark
Posted on February 09, 2008Brian Leiter is reporting that property prof Carlos Ball is moving from Penn State to Rutgers-Newark. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
Ball on Privacy, Property, and Public Sex
Posted on February 09, 2008Speaking of Carlos Ball, he has posted Privacy, Property, and Public Sex on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article argues that the constitutional right to sexual liberty should include the right to engage in public sex under certain circumstances. In...
Whitman Festschrift
Posted on February 06, 2008To my pleasure, the Missouri Law Review's festschrift volume for Dale Whitman (volume 72, fall 2007) appeared in my mailbox this morning. Lots of great articles--though I suspect my favorite will be Dale Whitman's "teaching property--a conceptual approach," which lists...
Reprising Hippie Jurisprudence
Posted on February 06, 2008In light of Orin Kerr's post on Judge Fullam's 1968 opinion regarding the prosecution of a "hippie", it may be time to reprise our post from last summer on hippie jurisprudence. The post was inspired by an issue of Rolling...
Advice to Law Journals, Part 24
Posted on February 05, 2008We're nearing the end of advice to law journals.... 24 Have some fun. Publishing a journal is a ton of work; try to have the experience itself be enjoyable. Al Brophy
Epstein on Wealth in Real Property
Posted on February 04, 2008Richard Epstein (Chicago) has posted How to Create - Or Destroy - Wealth in Real Property on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Current legal conceptions of property differ in the private and the public law. The former develops a comprehensive conception...
Goldstein v. Pataki
Posted on February 03, 2008Ilya Somin has a good post at the VC about this interesting Second Circuit case. An excerpt: The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently decided Goldstein v. Pataki, a case challenging the condemnation of homes and other...
Ceded Lands in Hawaii
Posted on February 03, 2008In 1893, the government of the Kingdom of Hawaii, a constitutional monarchy, was overthrown by a group of mostly American planters and businessmen, supported by a contingent of U.S. Marines. The revolutionaries subsequently established the Republic of Hawaii and entered...
Advice to Law Journals, Part 23
Posted on February 02, 200823 subsidize the journal (with academic credit). One of my colleagues uses the wise phrase "if you subsidize something you'll get more of it." I think applies well to lots of situations, including law reviews. Want students to spend more...
The Current State of Post-Kelo Eminent Domain Reform
Posted on January 29, 2008Over at the VC, Ilya Somin has a post linking to the latest version of his paper on post-Kelo eminent domain reform. The post also discusses the public's lack of knowledge about eminent domain issues: In the SCG's 2007 Saint...
Propertyprof's Lunch with James Krier
Posted on January 29, 2008I'm experimenting with some new "voices" for blogging. This one's going to be written in Wall Street Journal Law Blog style. We'll see how it goes. Propertyprof blog had the pleasure of lunching with James Krier recently. (He's visiting at...
Lehavi on Property and Community
Posted on January 28, 2008Amnon Lehavi (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliyah - Radzyner School of Law) has posted How Property Can Create, Maintain, or Destroy Community on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Property law plays a crucial role in the ability of groups, especially ones composed of...
Barros on Hadacheck v. Sebastian
Posted on January 28, 2008I've posted Hadacheck v. Sebastian on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This short encyclopedia entry discusses Hadacheck v. Sebastian and its relevance to contemporary regulatory takings jurisprudence. The entry describes the Hadacheck litigation and the treatment of Hadacheck in the Supreme...
Monday Roundup: Federalist Society Panels and Harvard's Atlantic World Seminar
Posted on January 28, 2008Let me roundup a couple of things propertyprofs might care about this morning. First, two panels from the Federalist Society's Tenth Annual Faculty Conference: "Post-Kelo Reform" with Vanderbilt's James Ely, Northwestern's David Dana, George Mason's Steve Eagle, Yale Law Olin...
Advice to Law Journals: Part 22
Posted on January 25, 2008Haven't posted anything on law reviews of late (partly because I've been distracted by talk of a lawsuit based on nuisance by Cleveland against subprime lenders). Congratulations, by the way, to Ben Barros for predicting this back in fall of...
More Subprime Litigation Issues
Posted on January 24, 2008The litigation fall out from the subprime mess is going to be a big topic for property profs. (Longtime readers might remember that I predicted a part of the mess back in the fall of 2005). Dave Redden has an...
Buyer Sues Broker for Failure to Disclose Declining Market
Posted on January 22, 2008From a NY Times article; particularly notable for the impact of the recent shift to buyer's agents: Marty Ummel believes she paid too much for her house. So do millions of other people who bought at the peak of the...
Kent on Regulatory Takings
Posted on January 22, 2008Michael B. Kent, Jr. (John Marshall - Atlanta) has posted Construing the Canon: An Exegesis of Regulatory Takings Jurisprudence after Lingle v. Chevron on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Regulatory takings has long been considered one of the more confused areas...
Body Parts Futures?
Posted on January 21, 2008From an op-ed by Ian Williams in the Guardian: In the US, the alleged bastion of property rights, religious obscurantism is robbing American citizens of their birthright. Everyone, no matter how poor, is wandering around with some quarter of a...
Atuahene on Reparation, Restoration, and Property in South Africa
Posted on January 21, 2008Bernadette Atuahene (Chicago-Kent) has posted the final version of From Reparation to Restoration: Moving Beyond Restoring Property Rights to Restoring Political and Economic Visibility on SSRN. Here's the abstract: How does a democratic state legitimize strong property rights when property...
Purpresture in Hawaii
Posted on January 19, 2008Thanks to the extraordinary Carl Christensen for calling to my attention what I did not know, but should have: Hawaii v. Kerr, 16 Haw. 363 (1905), a case about purpresture. Looks like purpresture may be a piece of aloha jurisprudence....
Purpresture: What's that?
Posted on January 18, 2008I'm working away on "Property and Progress: Antebellum Landscape Art and Property Law" (we've talked about a piece of this before and I'll be blogging more about it in the next few weeks). I'm interested in the law of beacons...
Breaking Up a Long Class
Posted on January 17, 2008A new property prof writes: My class is an hour and forty minutes twice a week. While this is good for me (only two times rather than three per week), I know that I need some good ideas for keeping...
Finding Law in the News
Posted on January 15, 2008From an AP Story: A contractor who helped discover bundles of cash totaling $182,000 hidden behind bathroom walls says the homeowner should turn the money over to him ? or at least share it. Bob Kitts said his feud with...
Heller and Hills on Land Assembly
Posted on January 15, 2008Michael Heller (Columbia) and Rodercik Hills (NYU) have posted The Art of Land Assembly on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Eminent domain for economic development is attractive and appalling. States need the power to condemn because so much land in America...
Salkin and Lavine on RLUIPA
Posted on January 15, 2008Patricia Salkin and Amy Lavine (Albany Law School) have posted The Genesis of RLUIPA and Federalism: Evaluating the Creation of a Federal Statutory Right and its Impact on Local Government on SSRN. Here's the abstract: In 2000, Congress passed, and...
Requiring Lenders to Maintain Foreclosed Property
Posted on January 14, 2008A student sent a long a link to an interesting story in Business Week about an effort in Buffalo to require lenders that have foreclosed on a property to maintain it. An excerpt: On Dec. 17 in a windowless Buffalo...
Immigration Law Enforcement vs. Private Property Rights
Posted on January 14, 2008I've posted before on the intersection between immigration law and property law. It is an important yet overlooked relationship that has interested me for some time and one that I have been focusing on as of late. The New York...
Monumental Silence in Spain
Posted on January 14, 2008Continuing with our occasional theme of monument law (and thanks to a pointer from Carl Christensen), here's a New York Times story on Spain's recent actions regarding monuments to Franco and the Spanish Civil War. The article begins: Last month...
Nash on Economic Efficiency, Public Choice, and Property Rights
Posted on January 11, 2008Jonathan Nash (Tulane) has posted Economic Efficiency Versus Public Choice: The Case of Property Rights in Road Traffic Management on SSRN. Here's the abstract: This Article argues, using the case of responses to traffic congestion, that public choice provides a...
Jacoby on Delinquency Management
Posted on January 11, 2008Melissa B. Jacoby (UNC - Chapel Hill) has posted Homeownership Risk Beyond a Subprime Crisis: The Role of Delinquency Management on SSRN. Here's the abstract: Public investment in and promotion of homeownership and the home mortgage market often relies on...
Underkuffler to Cornell
Posted on January 10, 2008This is somewhat old news that I missed when it first came out, but Laura Underkuffler is moving from Duke to Cornell. With Greg Alexander, Eduardo Penalver, and Emily Sherwin already there, Cornell will now have one of the strongest...
Teaching Order - Where Should Sevitudes Go?
Posted on January 10, 2008It's been a crazy first week of the semester, but I'm finally starting to feel like things are under control. Earlier in the week, I put together my syllabi for my property classes for this semester. I'm teaching the second...
White on Banning Subprime Mortgages
Posted on January 10, 2008Alan M. White (Valparaiso) has posted The Case for Banning Subprime Mortgages on SSRN. Here's the abstract: While the subprime mortgage boom was in full swing, its benefits to American society were widely touted. Subprime mortgages were said to have....
Two by Freyfogle
Posted on January 08, 2008Eric Freyfogle (Illinois) has two new posts up on SSRN. They are: Private Property: Correcting the Half Truths Today's discussions about private land ownership and regulatory takings build upon a number of critical assumptions about how private property arises, how...
First few days of property: roundup of some of our favorite posts
Posted on January 07, 2008So the new semester's about to start and that means first year students everywhere (or at least at a lot of schools) will be reading cases like Pierson v. Post and Johnson v. M'Intosh. So I thought I'd round up...
Gary Rosin on ABA's Proposal Regarding Bar Pass Rates and Accreditation
Posted on January 05, 2008We've been following South Texas Law Professor Gary Rosin's important work on bar pass rates for a while and its implications for the ABA's consideration of modifications to its law school accreditation standards. Here is Professor Rosin's latest report, which...
Advice to Law Journals, Part 21
Posted on January 05, 200821 publish cartoons This idea I got from the Journal of Legal Education. Seems a little strange at first, but I think there're some possibilities in doing innovative things. I think of publishing cartoons as a metaphor for innovative things....
More Property Poetry
Posted on January 03, 2008While all the cool people are in New York for AALS, I'm sitting here in Tuscaloosa. So I thought that I'd post a little more property poetry. Like my most recent property poetry post (on John Rueben Thompson's poem about...
Papers for AALS Junior Property Scholars Works-in-Progress Panel
Posted on January 02, 2008I hope that those of you who are heading to New York will attend the Junior Property Works-in-Progress panel on Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. The two papers being presented are now available for download if you want to read...
Private Road Act Litigation
Posted on January 02, 2008Pennsylvania has a Private Road Act that allows owners of landlocked parcels to condemn a private road for access to a nearby public road. The Pennsylvania courts have interpreted the Private Road Act as requiring a degree of necessity that...
Panel on Eminent Domain Reform
Posted on January 02, 2008For those of you who are going to be in NY this week, Ilya Somin has organized a panel Friday morning on eminent domain reform at the Federalist Society's parallel conference. Ben Barros [Comments are held for approval, so there...
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