Property Stories
Authors:
Korngold, Gerald / Morriss, Andrew P.
Edition:
2nd
Copyright Date:
2009
20 chapters
have results for Property stories
Introduction 25 results (showing 5 best matches)
- We offer you here a “bundle of stories”—
- Property Stories
- Introduction: The Story of
- For millennia, humans have recognized property ownership in real and personal property. The law early on evolved rules for real property (i.e., land and buildings) and tangible personal property (i.e., things we can put our hands on and that carry their value in their physical form). More recently, the law also developed a structure for intangible personal property, such as debts and stock, by extending the concepts first developed for tangible property. Professor Maxwell J. Mehlman’s recounting of the story of confronts us with the brave new frontier of property—given that human tissues and other by-products now have commercial value, can these portions of our bodies be owned and transferred like other property interests? This chapter teaches us about the limitations on the property regime, founded in normative values and our notions of what it means to be human, and illustrates the difficulties courts have when wrestling with new factual circumstances.
- In the third chapter, Professor R. H. Helmholz tells the story of an oft-cited and taught case on adverse possession, . The concept of adverse possession often troubles first-year Property students (and many accomplished lawyers as well!) since it appears to amount to no more than legalized theft—allowing a person to engage in wrongful acts over a period of time thereby acquiring the title of the true owner of land. Courts and commentators have provided various justifications for (rationalizations of?) adverse possession doctrine, suggesting that it helps clear complicated titles by relying on the facts on the ground, represents the societal wish to “let sleeping dogs lie” at a certain point, and yields an efficient allocation of our limited land resources by moving ownership to the person actually utilizing the property. Professor Helmholz adds important considerations to this discussion through his telling of the ...story: adverse possession cases are too often complicated by...
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Biographies of Property Stories Contributors 17 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Property Stories
- Cases and Text on Property
- is the Ashby Lohse Professor of Water and Natural Resources Law at the University of Arizona, and the Gordon Bradford Tweedy Professor of Law and Organization (Emer.) at Yale Law School. She is a graduate of Antioch College; she has a Ph.D. (History) from Cornell University, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. She writes and teaches in the history and theory of property, environmental law, and resource-related issues. She is the author of the book
- practiced law in Seattle, Washington for eight years before joining the law faculty at the University of California at Davis in 1975. Since 1989 she has been a member of the UCLA law faculty, where she teaches property, wills and trusts, community associations law, and land use. She is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Washington Law School. She was the Reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Property, Servitudes (2000), an engagement that grew out of her 1982 article,
- is the John Byrd Martin Professor of Law at the University of Georgia, where he has taught since 1984. He presently teaches property, real estate transactions, secured transactions, and other upper-level courses. He grew up in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and graduated from Saint Olaf College in 1974, majoring in Math and History. After graduation from the University of Texas School of Law in 1977, he served as Law Clerk for Judge Walter Ely, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in Los Angeles. He then practiced law for four years with the law firm of Baker Botts in Houston, Texas, specializing in commercial real estate. In 1982 he left private practice to go into teaching. From 1982 to 1984 Professor Smith taught at the Ohio State University College of Law. He is author of five books: Property: Cases and Materials (Aspen, 2d ed. 2008) (with Ed Larson, John Nagle and John Kidwell); Real Estate Transactions: Problems, Cases, and Materials (Aspen, 3d ed. 2007 with Robin Malloy);...
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Chapter 14. Neponsit Property Owners’ Association v. Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank 31 results (showing 5 best matches)
- One might surmise that this omission reflected a low level of local awareness of legal issues. That surmise, however, would be wrong. The local papers reported on a number of legal issues, including stories relating directly to the Neponsit Property Owners Association.
- As contemplated by the deed covenants, the Neponsit Realty Company did organize an association—the Neponsit Property Owners’ Association (the Association). The Association’s certificate of incorporation described its objects. First among those objects was “to preserve the settlement known as Neponsit on Rockaway Beach … as a highly restricted, well kept and properly maintained suburban home community.” In addition, the Association was designed “to acquire title to and hold such portions of said property, including the beach front, as may be granted to it by deed or otherwise, for the benefit of all property owners in said Neponsit, and to make such use of such property … as shall be for the best interests of the property holders at said Neponsit.”
- Third, condemnation of the beachfront property deprived the Association of ownership of any property in the development, creating (as we shall see) a doctrinal obstacle to enforcement of the covenant.
- See, e.g. Joseph William Singer, Introduction to Property 250–51 (2001); Roger A. Cunningham, William B. Stoebuck, and Dale A. Whitman, The Law of Property 494 (2000).
- “The assignee, the Neponsit Property Owners’ Association, is merely a scheme by which several individuals in Neponsit seek to levy tribute upon all the property holders at Neponsit Beach. Although a membership corporation in name, these individuals pay themselves salaries when in truth and in fact the New York City Department of Sanitation and the Park Department maintain all streets, paths, parks, roads, beach and sewers, etc.”
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Chapter 8. Property Stories: Shelly v. Kraemer 43 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Even from our more modern pragmatic perspective—and quite aside from questions of racial equity—constraints that might reduce the set of potential bidders for a particular property could be a matter of some significance. After all, the smaller the class of people who will bid for an owner’s property, all other things being equal, the lower the property’s likely value on resale.
- But the “touch and concern” doctrine goes beyond that simple guideline and goes on to another object as well: that is, it assures that real property not become too loaded down with idiosyncratic restrictions. As several modern property scholars have pointed out, can set out innumerable complicated obligations, because the parties do the negotiations themselves and presumably know all the intricate details of their bargains; normally, contractual obligations will not outlast the original parties to the deal. But property is different, because property—and especially landed property—goes on into the indefinite future to successive owners, who are increasingly remote from first-hand knowledge of the original transactions. Hence it is important that obligations attaching to landed property take relatively simple and standardized forms, so that distantly future buyers will not inadvertently get themselves into peculiar obligations, and so that buyers generally do not have to be on the...
- When looked at through the lens of property law, one sees in RRCs some of the nastiest and most mean-spirited aspects of property—the ways that even thinly-held prejudices, widespread through communities or simply case itself, cryptic though it was, some of the best instincts in property law: the idea that you can own property, use it, and can dispose of it pretty much the way you want, including placing lasting conditions on it—so long as those conditions do something to make all the land in question collectively more valuable. What your conditions cannot do is to is to make it impossible for to own property too, and to use it and dispose of it the way they want as well, just because of who they are.
- Gerald Korngold, The Emergence of Private Land Use Controls in Large–Scale Subdivisions: The Companion Story to
- The argument of this chapter is that Shelley’s “state action” enigma can best be solved by inquiring into the character of racially restrictive covenants specifically as property. This is an inquiry that is aided by some new legal scholarship—in particular, new scholarly attention to the differences between property and contract, and to the interrelations between law and social norms.
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Property Stories 8 results (showing 5 best matches)
- PROPERTY STORIES
- Chapter 8: Property Stories: Shelly v. Kraemer
- Chapter 11: Upper West Side Story: The Symphony Space, Inc. v. Pergola Properties, Inc. 669 N.E.2d 799 (1996)
- Biographies of Property Stories Contributors
- Chapter 1: The Story of Sturges v. Bridgman: The Resolution of Land Use Disputes Between Neighbors
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Chapter 11. Upper West Side Story: The Symphony Space, Inc. v. Pergola Properties, Inc. 669 N.E.2d 799 (1996) 57 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Looking today at the Symphony Space building tucked under the corner of a luxury apartment complex, it is easy to imagine that Symphony was the lone holdout when all of the surrounding owners sold their parcels to The Lyric. Was Symphony an unwilling seller? Not exactly. Symphony owned parcels 2527 through 2537 along Broadway and sold most of its holdings for development into residential housing. How Symphony came to own that valuable Manhattan property is a story of rent control, cash flow pressures, and property tax avoidance; but mostly it is a story of one modern “remorseless” application of a rule against remote vesting established nearly a century before our colonies broke free of England.
- Isaiah Sheffer and Allan Miller needed a place to stage a concert, called “Wall to Wall Bach,” on January 7, 1978. The place they found was an old building on the southwest corner of 95th and Broadway, on Manhattan’s upper west side. The building dated from 1915, when Vincent Astor built the 95th street market. A mere two years later, Thomas Healy purchased the property, installing the Crystal Palace ice rink on the main floor and converting the basement fish market into the Sunken Gardens restaurant. He built the Healy Building just to the south, at the northwest corner of 94th and Broadway. On the adjoining property to the west, Healy built rows of cottages separated by a garden walkway; Pomander Walk has since become a landmark. Over time, the space for the skating rink was converted into the Symphony Theatre, and the basement restaurant into the Thalia Cinema. The remainder of the property was divided into stores and office space. Eventually, the Symphony Theatre became the...
- Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story, Vocal Score (1959).
- Many children are born and years pass. All lives in being expire. 22 more years pass. Playhouse dedicates a production of West Side Story to the decedent. Playhouse’s executory interest vests.
- which was in turn held by the Thomas Healy Trust, which had been created by Healy out of the properties that he developed around 1920, the Healy Building, Pomander Walk, and the building containing the Theatre and Cinema. Broadwest was struggling to find a way to increase its distributions to its owners. After an informal appraisal in 1978 indicated the property was worth $1.5 million, Broadwest’s lawyer, Jerome K. Walsh, advised selling. But Broadwest’s managing agent for the property, Judson Realty, Inc., advised holding onto the property, based on a prediction that the wave that was dramatically lifting property values south of 72nd Street would move north and buoy the value of Broadwest’s property. Judson Realty also advised Broadwest that the current appraisal was depressed due to the lease agreements held by tenants which ran through 1987 and netted only $60,000 per year; developers, who were probably the best potential buyers, would pay more once the property was unencumbered...
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Chapter 12. Lucas v. The Green Machine: Using the Takings Clause to Promote More Efficient Regulation 74 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The story of David Lucas has been hailed as “exquisitely illustrat[ing]” the wisdom of the first, cost-internalization, justification. A close look at the twists and turns of the saga of the colorful Lucas and his two beachfront lots, however, reveals instead several very serious problems with the cost-internalization justification for a compensation requirement. First, the story of South Carolina’s decision to relax its restrictions on beachfront development after Lucas won a compensation award suggests that the award may have played much less of a role in that decision than adherents of the cost-internalization justification claim. Second, the difficulty of assessing what effect, if any, the compensation award actually had on the legislators and regulators involved in story reveals several reasons to believe that such a requirement is likely to result in too ...that the political power of beachfront property owners has caused state and local governments to be much too reluctant...
- Law and economics scholars like Fischel, then, view the story of the lots as a rather embarrassing object lesson that governments will over-regulate unless they are forced to pay compensation to property owners affected by regulations. But a closer look at the story both casts doubt on the role that the compensation award in
- lots in particular or on the South Carolina coast in general. Nor is it clear that the state’s decision to allow more coastal development was more efficient—produced greater social welfare—than its earlier strict retreat policy. More generally, the real story of “Lucas v. The Green Machine” shows the difficulty of predicting how, if at all, a compensation mandate will influence government decision-makers, given our lack of understanding about how elected and appointed officials make decisions. To the extent that a compensation mandate does discipline government decision-makers, the saga reveals that a blunt cost-internalization rule that ignores the political power of certain property owners and focuses only on the costs and not on the benefits of government regulation is more likely to lead governments to allow more development than is socially optimal than to encourage efficiency.
- Perhaps inspired by the Duke’s example, Lucas decided instead to come out with all guns blazing by filing suit. His complaint alleged that the Act would “prohibit any kind of development, building or construction” on his property, thereby denying him “all reasonable use of property,” squashing all “reasonable investment-backed expectations” he had for the property, and rendering the property “valueless.” Prior to the passage of the BMA, Lucas claimed, the Isle of Palms property had a market value of more than $2 million. After the BMA, he complained, the property was bereft of all “market or other economic value.”
- Judge Patterson ordered payment of $1,232,387 plus interest—$1.17 million in fair market value of the property on the effective date of the BMA plus the real property taxes and mortgage interest Lucas had paid on the property after that date.
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Chapter 10. Sanborn v. McLean: A Strange Tale of Inquiry Notice and Implied Burdens 49 results (showing 5 best matches)
- arose in this context of late 19th century urban development, private agreements to create residential oases, and the importance of notice to constrain free use of property. includes multiple stories, some official, some not. There is, of course, the narrative of the case and its decision as set out for us by the Supreme Court of Michigan. I will relate that story but also tell you why that narrative seems to have big gaps in it, both in terms of the factual background that the court chose to recite and the legal reasoning that the court applied. On the two legal issues the court faced—whether the land was bound by a residential restriction and whether the subsequent purchaser had notice of the restriction—the court made illogical, unprecedented, and (at least on the notice issue) wrong decisions.
- does not look like a consumer protection story. This was not a pro-consumer era and these consumers are not great plaintiffs. Two other narratives may be the true story of
- story—T. Glenn Phillips. Phillips gave a bravura performance at the trial, shaped the story of the case, and sold it to Judge Driscoll. Phillips’ version is the story that the trial court adopted and the Michigan Supreme Court ratified.
- law, had created restrictions on McLean’s property. Phillips instead told a story of the supposed benefits of
- There is another likely story in He said that a gasoline station would decrease his property’s value and that he would have not purchased his lot if he had not thought that it was a residential-only neighborhood.
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Chapter 4. Gruen v. Gruen: A Tale of Two Stories 30 results (showing 5 best matches)
- for a story about the civil case brought by one of the teenagers who was paralyzed by Goetz (he won a $43 million verdict), and for a story on Goetz’s move away from New York City.
- arose after the purported donor’s death and pitted a child of a former marriage against the widow. Unlike most such litigation, however, there was no doubt that Victor Gruen really did intend to give the painting to his son, Michael, and there was no suggestion that in doing so he treated his widow, Kemija, unfairly. Why, then, did it take a seven-day trial and two appeals to establish Michael’s ownership of the painting? Ah, therein lies a tale, a tale of two stories. First, there is the family story and, then, there is the legal story. Both are interesting. Sit back, relax, and I’ll tell you the tale.
- I. The Family Story, or “A Famous Man and a Fabulous Painting”
- II. The Legal Story, Part I: The Trial
- III. The Legal Story, Part II: The Appeals
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Chapter 5. Two Sisters vs. A Father and Two Sons: The Story of Sawado v. Endo 85 results (showing 5 best matches)
- In the community property states, which followed European civil law traditions rather than English common law, property acquired during marriage was generally held by the community of husband and wife. Wives in community property states were thought to be more protected because their rights in the community property were more vested than the rights that wives had in common law property states. Yet, as with tenancies by the entirety, community property rules gave the husband full control over all community property. In community property states, as well as in common law property states, the husband’s creditors could reach the entire property. Some community property states enacted laws that protected the wife’s interest in separate property from the claims of her husband’s creditors. Community property, however, remained available to satisfy the husband’s debts.
- Of the 50 states, there are 42 common law property states and 8 community property states. Community property states would not have recognized the tenancy by the entirety as part of their common law since property acquired by husband and wife was usually presumed to be community property. Because community property did not include survivorship rights, the tenancy by the entirety with its irrevocable right of survivorship would have been contrary to basic notions about marital property. Although several community property states do mention the tenancy by the entirety in their statutes and case law, none appear to have recognized the estate as it existed at common law. Indeed, the community property regime of Texas seemed so inconsistent with spousal rights of survivorship that until recently the Probate Code included a statute that claimed: “Joint Tenancies Abolished.”
- Plaintiffs claimed that they were creditors of Kokichi Endo at the time he and his wife transferred their home to their sons. Prior to the conveyance, the spouses held the property as tenants by the entirety. Thus, prior to the conveyance, both husband and wife had an interest in the property. The plaintiffs’ claim was solely against the husband and so only his interest in the property could be attached. When spouses hold property as tenants by the entirety, each spouse has the right to use the property during their joint lives and at the death of the first spouse, the survivor owns the property in fee. Had the spouses not conveyed the property to their sons and had the wife survived the husband, her survivorship rights would have taken effect and plaintiffs’ liens as creditors would have been unenforceable against the realty. However, since in fact the husband survived the wife, ...plaintiffs’ claim against the husband’s interest in the property could have been enforced against his...
- States did not respond to feminist demands by enacting new marital property regimes. Community property states remained community property states and common law states retained much of the common law doctrine of coverture. In community property states, some minor reforms occurred during the last half of the nineteenth century that protected a wife’s separate property from the husband’s creditors. Property owned by the community, however, remained under the sole control of the husband for another century. limited control over their own earnings and such property that might come into their hands by gift or devise.
- Separate Property: The real and personal property of a woman shall, upon her marriage, remain her separate property, free from the management, control debts, and obligations of her husband; and a married woman may receive, receipt for, hold, manage, and dispose of property, real and personal, in the same manner as if she were sole.
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Chapter 7. Tulk v. Moxhay: The Fight to Develop Leicester Square 12 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Many court opinions that we study in law school deal with conflicting property claims to places that have historic significance and contemporary , 1848) is famous. The reason for its fame is not that it “settled things,” or was more important to the litigants, or played a more critical role than other decisions in determining the future course of the use of the land. Collectively the legal history of the Garden represents a long ebb and flow between people who sought to develop and those who sought to preserve the place as open space. All steps are part of the story that led to what Leicester Square is today—a small, attractive public place in London’s west end.
- was a pivotal step in the fight to preserve Leicester Square, but the court’s 1848 decision by itself did not resolve the fate of the Square. That took almost three decades. Several more rounds of litigation followed until 1874, when Leicester Square became public property due to the intervention of a philanthropist, who purchased the various private rights and conveyed the property to the local government.
- This consisted of three acres of the Abbey’s former land and one acre of the Beaumont property.
- Michael Heller, The Tragedy of the Anticommons: Property in the Transition From Marx to Markets, 111 Harv. L. Rev. 621 (1998).
- In the Middle Ages ownership of St. Martin’s Field was fragmented. The Abbot and Convent of St. Peters in Westminster owned four acres, and the Beaumont family owned three acres. King Henry VIII acquired both these parts. In 1536, the Abbot surrendered three acres to the King. The next year, Beaumont’s widow died, and that estate escheated to the King. St. Martin’s Field remained property of the Crown until 1623, when James I sold the land in fee simple.
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Chapter 13. Cattle vs. Retirees: Sun City and the Battle of Spur Industries v. Del E. Webb Development Co. 33 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The two sides developed internally consistent, but mutually contradictory stories of the case, which they stuck to throughout. For Spur the case was simple: it was there first, in a rural area, where it was conducting an agricultural business, licensed by the state in a non-negligent manner. Webb caused the problem by trying to get land more cheaply than it would have been able to in a more urban part of the county, vastly increasing Webb’s profit from the deal by an estimated seventeen million dollars. If anything, Webb had created the problem by misrepresenting to the residents of Sun City that their property was suitable for an active outdoor lifestyle. Webb’s role in the creation of the problem meant that Webb, not Spur, should bear any financial burden caused by the conflicting land uses. As Spur phrased it in its opening brief on appeal, the question was
- Del E. Webb: American Success Story,
- Del E. Webb: American Success Story,
- Del E. Webb: American Success Story,
- James A. Casner, et al., Cases and Texts on Property (4th ed. 2000) at 910–917 (reprinting opinion); Jesse Dukeminier & James E. Krier, Property (4th ed. 1998) at 765–776, 1146–1147 (reprinting opinion); John E. Cribbet, et al., Property: Cases and Materials (8th ed. 2002) at 621–623 (reprinting opinion); Edward H. Rabin, et al., Fundamentals of Modern Property Law (4th ed. 2000) at 566–579 (reprinting opinion).
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Chapter 1. The Story of Sturges v. Bridgman: The Resolution of Land Use Disputes Between Neighbors 27 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Let us now turn from economic theory to the mundane world of legal decision, as exemplified in the story of . The case certainly illustrates the reciprocal nature of the problem of social cost, in that the dispute only arose because of the manner in which the working practices of the doctor and the confectioner were so organized that the noise and vibration originating in the confectioner’s property interfered with the work of the doctor. It is also clear that the parties could perfectly well have avoided litigation by reaching some mutually acceptable bargain, and this will always be possible in principle in private nuisance disputes, though a bargain by itself will not necessarily solve a public nuisance case.
- The wall which separated the two properties, and which originally had formed the west boundary of the small yard, was also the east wall of Mr. Bridgman’s kitchen, which lay at the rear of his property, 30 Wigmore Street. There was a corner building where Wigmore Street intersected Wimpole Street, and Mr. Bridgman’s property was the next property located on the north side of the street, and to the west of the intersection. The dividing wall was a party wall, one and a half bricks, that is about fourteen inches, in thickness. The newly built west wall of the consulting room was built directly against this party wall, adding approximately nine inches to its thickness. It was located of course on Dr. Sturges’ property, and was not itself a party wall. In the kitchen were two sixteen inch marble mortars, located near the north east corner of the kitchen, close to the south west corner of the consulting room. These mortars were set in brickwork built up against the party wall; presumably...
- Valuable though the distinction is, confusion can be caused here by contrasting entitlements protected by property rules from entitlements protected by liability rules, or property The statement of a property right is the statement of an entitlement which the law protects; in a sense it is the statement of an ideal. The mechanisms whereby such an entitlement is protected are quite distinct, and usually complex. They may involve both the civil and the criminal law. These mechanisms represent the outworks of rights, not their substance. A landowner’s property rights are protected by criminal law, by property rules, and by liability rules, not to mention such institutions as that of testamentary succession, contract law and the law of gifts. The enthusiasm or intensity of protection varies, so that in relation to personal property, much of which is fungible, orders for specific restitution are commonly not available. To view this as a legal recognition that people can take other...
- have retreated from an enthusiastic protection of property rights by refusing injunctions in situations in which, although there is substantial interference, the cost of abating a nuisance is thought to be much greater than the damage caused by allowing it to continue. Given certain arrangements about the recovery of damages, this may allow a polluting land-owner to acquire a right to pollute without the consent of the victim on payment of a price fixed by the court, a bizarre state of affairs in a capitalist society. But even today, and certainly not in the nineteenth century, courts do not enter into open-ended investigations as to the efficient use of adjacent tracts of land, and allocate rights accordingly. To do that would be the end of the right of private property. The decision in the case certainly weakens the protection of that right. It may well be that the institution of private property, coupled with the institution ...have too much property, and others have too...
- So it is that the judicial opinions in the case, like the affidavits on which they are based, make not the least attempt to investigate the economic or social value of the activities of either confectioner or doctor. It would be idle to claim that views on such matters do not have, in practice, any effect on the outcome of cases; the legal doctrines involved are malleable, and impressionistic views as to social welfare or ethical standing may influence the way they are applied. Good guys tend to win, and bad guys to lose. But legally speaking notions of economic or social value are wholly irrelevant. They must be in a capitalist system which respects the right of private property, for it is not the business of the courts to substitute their despotic dominion to that of the litigants. As owners or occupiers of property the parties must be treated equally, with respect for their rights to do what they like on their property, however inefficient, so long as this does not violate some...
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Chapter 6. Saunders (a.k.a. Javins) v. First National Realty Corporation 30 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Boarded windows deface the spacious entrance lobbies, which hark back to their better days with well-worn marble stairs, carved pillars and high ceiling with elaborate moldings. All upper story apartments have their own balconies, many of them festooned with drying laundry, airing rugs and junk.
- story, therefore, is full of the raw passion of actors convinced of the righteousness of their positions. Reconstructing the tale requires more than a review of the changes
- This little story comes from an Interview with Charles Duncan by the Author (May 27, 2002). The exact timing is not clear. Roisman thinks it might have occurred before the city criminally prosecuted Brown and that the prosecution was, in part, a result of this event. Duncan recalled the event, but not its exact historical moment. Roisman also insists she was never behind Pair’s desk. Duncan’s recollection is different.
- To modern readers, this must seem quite odd. The idea that “conveyances” were different from “contracts” and that the rules for conveyances of leases were dramatically different from those controlling transfers of interests in other things of value seems strange at best and inane at worst. But Wright’s conveyance/contract dichotomy perfectly fit its historical moment. Though not yet reflected in law review literature, there was an ongoing debate in academic circles about the applicability of contract law to leases. As suggested by the terms of Wright’s opinion, the discussion took the highly structured form of debating whether a lease represented a “property” conveyance or a “contractual” agreement. That form of debate emerged as a shorthand way of attempting to deal with the continuing vitality of the independent covenant rules in eviction law. “property” transaction. The reformers discussing the issue lamented the use of old property rules and argued that a shift to contractual...
- At the time Wardman Courts was constructed, landlord-tenant law in Washington, D.C. and most of the rest of the country was based on a fairly simple and already old-fashioned set of property norms. The norms rested upon an English tenurial notion that in return for a grant of permission to use land, a tenant agreed to pay rent, maintain the land and return the land when the lease expired. It was a simple contract exchanging some form of payment in cash, service or kind for the right to possess land. Granting the tenant the right to take possession fulfilled all of the responsibilities of the landlord. After gaining the right to take possession, the tenant was obligated to pay the rent and return the land to the landlord at the termination of the lease. The customary view was that a lease gave the tenant virtually complete control over the use of the rented property for the lease term. ...flaw on the leased property was unable to obtain compensation from the landlord. The...
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Chapter 15. Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. 20 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Besides preserving property values, zoning has been used to constrain property values for the same purposes of preserving the middle-class character of a residential neighborhood. Due to the rise in noise, partying, inadequate parking, and underage drinking as a result of student tenants, Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania adopted an ordinance to prohibit renting property to a group of more than three students in a residential district. The residents also feared landlord-investors would buy “up properties to rent to students, thus driving up property values, pricing middle-class families out of the local housing market and changing the character of their community.”
- However, zoning came into its own as a method of controlling the use of land by implementing city plans in New York City in 1920. The story is well and thoroughly told in many fine historical commentaries, among them Seymour Toll’s
- In the end, the judge held that the ordinance unconstitutionally took Ambler’s property, finding that the fine line between what the police power—through zoning—could accomplish without violating private property rights had indeed been crossed, citing the then recently-decided There, recall, Justice Holmes penned the near-immortal words which ushered in the concept of regulatory takings: “The general rule at least is that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.” For the district court, zoning went too far; the degree of regulation and its effect on private property was too great. As Metzenbaum observes in his treatise, “It was recognized from coast to coast, that a defeat in this case, would cause all zoning ordinances in successive order throughout the land to fall, like a row of dominoes stood end to end.”
- , however, courts interpreted this definition to include economic welfare, more specifically, the preservation of property values. Today, “[c]onservation of property value is a legitimate governmental interest well within the broad scope of the police power.”
- Zoning may easily degenerate into a talismanic word, like the “police power,” to excuse all sorts of arbitrary infringements on the property rights of the landowner. To assure that this does not happen, our courts must require local zoning authorities to pay more than mock obeisance to the statutory mandate that zoning be “in accordance with a comprehensive plan.”
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Chapter 3. The Saga of Van Valkenburgh v. Lutz: Animosity and Adverse Possession in Yonkers 16 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Jesse Dukeminier and James E. Krier, Property 129 (5th ed. 2002). It is also printed in Patrick Rohan,
- This particular dispute is well known to students of the law of real property from the opinion rendered by the New York Court of Appeals in 1952. The opinion has been included in the best selling Casebook currently used in First Year Property courses and has also attracted the attention of several commentators.
- Real and Personal Property
- Real Property
- Real Property
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Chapter 2. Moore v. Regents of the University of California 24 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Another problem with establishing the value of the cells is how to factor in the efforts of the defendants. When property is converted and then significantly altered by the efforts of another party, the law invokes the doctrine of “accession.” Title to the property actually can transfer to the converting party if they make substantial improvements, in which case the original owner only receives the value of the property at the time of conversion. However, title would only transfer in this fashion if the conversion were innocent—in had acted in the good-faith belief that they owned the cells after they were removed from Moore’s body. On the other hand, if the conversion is willful, the original owner will be awarded the enhanced value of the property, even though the value was enhanced by the efforts of others.
- This brings us back to Moore’s complaint. The law clearly gives individuals a limited right to control whether or not their organs will be used for transplantation or research following their deaths. Some courts have recognized that families have a limited property right in the organs of their loved ones. Where there is no legal prohibition against commercialization, these property rights are even more clear cut: People can buy and sell their blood and hair, as well as, in effect, their eggs and sperm. Finally, by allowing them to be patented, the law regards living organisms and their underlying structures as someone’s property. An action for conversion might well lie if a fertility clinic walked off with and sold someone’s eggs or sperm, or if someone stole a bacterium that someone had patented. The question, then, is why the majority in
- But the majority opinion not only allows Moore to proceed with a cause of action for failure to obtain his informed consent, but with an action for “breach of fiduciary duty.” The majority seems to regard these as separate causes of action, but never makes clear whether there is a separate remedy for the latter. Historically, a breach of fiduciary duty gave rise to an action in equity. If property held in trust was misappropriated by the fiduciary for the fiduciary’s own benefit, the court would impose a constructive trust on the property for the benefit of the beneficiary of the trust. Any value added to the property by the acts of the fiduciary were forfeit; it was as if the fiduciary had added the value for the benefit of the beneficiary. According to this approach, Moore would be entitled to the full value of his commercialized cells. The only deduction might be for value added by innocent third parties, and even then, the courts favor the interests of the beneficiary, and may...
- As this case demonstrates, conflicts over the control of potentially valuable biological material will continue to arise. If the law regards the material as property, it will have to decide to whom it belongs and what they can and cannot do with it. The same issues will be presented if the courts follow the approach in the case, except that the question of control will be decided on the basis of privacy and autonomy rather than property considerations.
- Physicians also were developing techniques to overcome infertility. Some of these, like artificial insemination and surrogacy, involved transferring human biological materials, such as eggs, sperm, or fertilized embryos, from one individual to another. Should the law treat them as property, and if so, could these biological materials be traded on the open market?
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Chapter 9. A Short Course in Land Transactions: Protecting Title to Land Brown v. Lober, 389 N.E.2d 1188 (Ill. 1979) 19 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The farm at the center of this dispute is located in a area of small farms in rural Illinois about forty five miles northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. The property is on Shoal Creek road, just east of the community of Walshville in Grisham Township, Montgomery County, Illinois. Ms. Lober told me that Mr. Bost had been a dairy farmer who later dabbled in real estate. She stated that she believes he drew up the deed when the property was sold in 1957 to James and Dolly Brown. That deed describes the property as being in the Township of Walshville but the Montgomery County plat books for 1966 and 1997 locate the property in Grisham Township.
- as in the typical commercial real estate transaction, the parties negotiated a contract to buy and sell a particular parcel of property. The contract was in writing, as required by the Statute of Frauds. In most cases, the purchaser plans to borrow money to pay the agreed-upon price and needs time to negotiate a loan. The loan will be secured by a lien on the property being purchased. If the buyer-borrower defaults on the loan, the bank or other lender can order the property to be sold at auction and the proceeds used to pay off the ...frequency in the purchase of single-family homes and condominium units, the buyer and lender both need time to arrange for any necessary inspections of the property, such as for termites, radon gas, or mold, to name a few of the current popular ones. In addition, buyer and lender also have an interest in examining the public land records to determine the state of the title that will be transferred, but for different reasons. The buyer wants...
- The likely explanation is that plaintiffs had not secured a title opinion at the time they purchased the property, and the subsequent examiners for the lenders were not concerned with the mineral rights. Plaintiffs’ oversight, however, does not justify us in overruling earlier decisions in order to recognize an otherwise premature cause of action.
- reservation had been made. Such examinations were a staple of property law practice at the time, particularly in rural communities. Assuming the examiner, attorney or otherwise, had been hired by the lender, did the Browns have a claim against the examiner and/or the lender for the failure to notify them of the mineral rights reservation? The question raises another question: does the bank make any kind of promise, express or implied, to a borrower that it will look after the borrower’s interests when examining the title of property that will be security for a loan that the borrower is seeking from the bank? Courts have been reluctant to hold lenders liable to purchaser/borrowers for defects in title absent evidence that the lender has in fact promised to do so. Without strong evidence, courts have refused to imply a promise because of the belief that the parties’ interests are sufficiently different as to negate the presence of an implied promise or fiduciary duty by the lender to...
- , in 9 Thompson on Real Property, Thomas Edition, §§ 82.07(b) & 82.10(a) (Thomas ed.1994), citing 2 Edward Coke, Institutes of the Law of England; or a Commentary Upon Littleton, chapter 13 (1st Am. Ed., from the 19th London ed., Charles Butler ed. 1853); 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England *300–03 (1765); IV James Kent, Commentaries on American Law Part VI—Lecture LXVI at 458 (1830). William B. Stoebuck & Dale A. Whitman, The Law of Property, 3d, §§ 11.1 & 11.13 (2000).
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- Publication Date: March 5th, 2009
- ISBN: 9781599413754
- Subject: Property
- Series: Law Stories
- Type: Overviews
- Description: This title provides the law student with an enriched understanding of 12 leading property cases. It focuses on how lawyers, judges, and policy factors shaped the litigation, and why the cases have attained noteworthy status. The volume is suitable for adoption as a supplement in a first-year property course, or as a text for an advanced seminar.