1L Property Flashcards
Johnson v. M’Intosh
Holding: Land title transfers are only valid when made under the rule of the currently prevailing government.
Shelley v. Kraemer
Holding: State court enforcement of a racially restrictive covenant constitutes state action that violates the equal protection clause.
Pierson v. Post
Holding: The mere pursuit of a beast (property) does not grant ownership to the pursuer, therefore the acquisition of the beast by another first is not eligible for a legal remedy.
Property in wild animals is acquired by occupancy, meaning at least mortal wounding or capturing from a distance, and at most physical possession.
3 Part Test:
- Intention to Appropriate
- Deprive Animal of Liberty
- Brought the animal in his control
Ghen v. Rich
Holding: A person establishes a property right over whales when he takes possession of the carcass and takes practical steps to secure it, in accordance with local custom.
Keebler v. Hickeringill
Holding: A property owner has a right to make lawful use of his property (for profit) without malicious interference of others.
Popov v. Hayashi
Holding: Where an actor takes significant but incomplete steps to achieve possession of a piece of abandoned personal property and the effort is interrupted by the unlawful acts of others, the actor has qualified right of possession.
Armory v. Delamirie
Holding: A person who finds a piece of chattel has a possessory property interest in the chattel, which may be enforced against anyone except the true owner of the chattel.
Hannah v. Peel
Holding: A finder of lost chattel on another’s property may have superior rights to the chattel compared to the real property owner.
Externalities
Externalities exist whenever some person makes a decision about how to use resources without taking full account of the effects of the decision.
Sleeping Principle
To penalize the negligent and dormant owner for sleeping on his rights.
If adverse possessor’s entry were not reasonably observable we couldn’t rightly blame an owner for being dormant.
Adverse Possession Requires that there be:
- An entry that is actual and exclusive
- Open and Notorious
- Continuous for the Statutory Period
- Adverse and Under a Claim of Right
Van Valkenburg v. Lutz
A Party takes adverse possession of a property owned by another when he takes actual possession, encloses it or makes improvements for a statutory period of years.
Manillo v. Gorski
A minor encroachment onto another’s land is not considered to satisfy the open and notorious requirements of adverse possession.
Doctrine of Agreed Boundaries
An oral boundary agreement to settle the matter is enforceable if accepted for a period time.
Doctrine of Estoppel
When one neighbor makes representations about the location of a common boundary and the other neighbor changes her position in reliance on the conduct.
Doctrine of Acquiescence
Long acquiescence is evidence of an agreement between the parties fixing the boundary line.
Howard v. Kunto
Adverse possession occurs when a person takes actual possession of property that is uninterrupted, open and notorious, hostile and exclusive, under a claim of right for a statutory specified period of time.
Law of Finders
A finder has better right except for true owner or any prior possessor.
Policy purposes: We want the law to make it more likely that a true owner gets back their item & we want to encourage honest finders.
Earning Theory
Adverse possessor has earned the right to the property. Given energy/use/reliance they have now earned the property.
Adverse Possession & Government Property
Adverse possession does not apply to government property
O’Keeffe v. Snyder
The discovery rule tolls the statute of limitations for chattel if the owner of stolen chattel acted with due diligence to pursue the property.
Requirements to make a Gift Personal Property:
1) Intent to transfer Property
2) Deliver Possession
3) Acceptance by Donee
Newman v. Bost
In order to effect a gift, the items must be physically delivered to the donee whenever possible.
Symbolic Delivery
Constructive Delivery
Actual
Symbolic-Delivery of Deed to object
Constructive-Delivery of key to car, key to house
Actual- Delivery of Object (ie. Dresser/Jewelry/Book)
Gruen v. Gruen
A gift will be valid when the donor retains a life estate in said gift, because an irrevocable transfer occurred, granting the donee the right to the gift once the life estate terminates.
Nonrivalrous Resources
A resource is nonrivalrous when your use of it does not interfere with the use of it by other people.
Ex. Recipe Macaroni and Cheese
Non excludable Resource
A resource is non excludable when it is difficult to prevent people from using it.
Ex. Musical notes
International News Service v. Associated Press
A quasi-property right exists in published news such that appropriating the published news gathered by another for further commercial purposes constitutes unfair competition in trade.
Raw facts are not protected by copyright, however where unfair competition practices come into play, a quasi-property right emerges as a right against industry competitors.
Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service co.
To be granted copyright protection, works must be original, meaning that they entail some minimal degree of creativity.
Elements of Copyright
- Work of Authorship
- Fixation
- Originality
Authors Guild v. Google Inc.
The fair use defense to a copyright infringement claim applies if a party copies books to a searchable online database but allows users to view only small portions of the books.
4 Elements of Fair Use
- Purpose and Character of Use (Transformative Purpose?)
- The Nature of the Copyrighted Work
- The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
- The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work
Diamond v. Chakrabarty
Living things fall within the scope of USC 101 as patentable matter.
Moore v. Regents of the University of California
Once cells leave a patient’s body they are no longer that patient’s property.
Matthews v. Bay Head Improvement Association
The public trust doctrine extends to dry beach area above the foreshore owned by a quasi-public entity.
Eldred v. Ashcroft
The copyright clause’s requirement that copyrights be granted only for limited time does not bar congress from extending the terms of existing copyrights
Patent Law
Governs ownership of Inventions
Copyright Law
Governs ownership of Creative Expression
Trademark Law
Governs Ownership of brands/logos/slogos and other signifiers used in trade.
Danger of becoming generic & losing trademark (think Velcro, Kleenex, Thermos, Chapstick, Frisbee, etc) shifts out of the private space and becomes public.
3 Requirements for Trademark Protection
- Distinctiveness
- Non-functionality
- 1st Use in Trade
In re Cordua Restaurants, Inc.
A generic term that the public understands to refer to describe the genus is not eligible for trademark status.
State v. Shack
Workers for a non-profit aiding migratory farm workers are not considered trespassers when they enter land to aid workers.
-The right to exclude doesn’t include the right to exclude government workers doing certain jobs/tasks.
Davis v. Davis
Unreasonable restraint on alienation:
A property owner should be able to convey property to whatever condition he/she desires to impose.
Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc.
Once a patentee decides to sell, the sale exhausts its patent rights regardless of any post-sale restrictions the patentee purports to impose.
Hawkins v. Mahoney
The interference of intent to abandon one’s property, based solely upon the acts of the owner is a rebuttable presumption.
Common Law Elements of Abandonment
1) The owner must intend to relinquish all interests in the property with no intention that it be acquired by any particular person.
2) There must be a voluntary act by the owner effectuating that intent.
Pocono Springs Civic Association, Inc. v. Mackenzie
An owner may NOT abandon real property unless all right, title, claim and possession is relinquished.
Eyerman v. Mercantile Trust co.
A court may prevent the destruction of property when it is against public policy.
White v. Brown
When the terms of a will are ambiguous, the will shall be determined to have passed on a fee simple absolute.
Defeasible
Any estate may be made to be defeasible, meaning, it will terminate prior to its nature end point upon the occurrence of some specified future event.
Baker v. Weedon
A court of equity has the power to order the sale of property subject to a future interest in order to prevent waste.
Mahrenholz v. County Board of School Trustees
A person who holds a “right of re-entry for condition broken” must take steps to reclaim the property after the condition has been broken in order to secure title in the land.
Fee Simple Determinable
Language: “To A AS LONG AS she remains a lawyer”.
(language of duration)
ex. “so long as”, “while”
Characteristics:
Violation=Automatic Forfeiture
Freely descendable
Freely Divisible
Future Interest: Possibility of Reverter
Fee Simple Subject to Condition Subsequent
Language:
Clear Durational language
“To A BUT IF coffee is consumed on site, grantor reserves right to reenter and retake”
ex. “but”
Characteristics:
Not automatically terminated but can be cut short at the grantor’s option.
Future Interest: Right of Entry/Power of Termination
Mountain Brow Lodge no. 82, Independent Order of Odd Fellows v. Toscano
No formal language is required to create a fee simple subject to a condition subsequent as long as the intent of the grantor is clear.
Ink v. City of Canton
A grantee with title to land under a restricted use subject to reverter is entitled to keep the full amount of any sums paid if the land is taken under eminent domain.
Consecutive Rights of Possession
Division results in possessory and future interests, not co-ownership
Tenancy in Common
Separate but undivided interests in the property. The interest of each is descendible and may be conveyed by deed or will. No survivorship rights.
Joint Tenants
Joint tenants have the right of survivorship because in theory joint tenants are regarded as a single owner. 4 unities were essential to joint tenancy: Time/Title/Interest/Possession
Tenancy by Entirety
Created only by married couples. Like joint tenants in the 4 unities plus a 5th (marriage). The surviving tenant has the right to survivorship. Only a conveyance of BOTH parties together may defeat the right of survivorship.
Riddle v. Harmon
One joint tenant may unilaterally sever the joint tenancy without the use of an intermediary device (straw man).
Harms v. Sprague
A lien placed on one joint tenant’s interest in jointly held property does not destroy a joint tenancy.
4 Unities of Joint Tenancy
- Time
- Title
- Interest
- Possession