Gaining or Losing Right or Title to Personal Property Flashcards
Types of Property
Real Property - things that can’t be moved and items that are attached or associated with the land
Personal Property - things you can take with you such as chattel
Leasholds - considered personal property
Crops
Wild Crops - real property
Cultivated Crops - personal property
Transfer - when conveying land, both types will pass with the land unless otherwise agreed
Exception - Doctrine of Emblements - tenants (or assignees of of holders of life estate) may re-take crops if tenure was 1) for an undetermined length of time and 2) tenancy was terminated to no fault of tenant.
Ways to Acquire Personal Property - List
- Capture
- Creation
- Conversion
- Fraud
- Accession
- Confusion
7 Adverse Possession
- Gift
Ways to Lose Title of Personal Property - List
- Abandonment
- Loss
- Misplacement
- Fraud
Ways to Acquire - Capture of Un-owned Property
- Wild Animals - remain unowned until someone captures them by exercising dominion over them and reduces them to possession.
- Owned Animals - become unowned unless
1) owner marked the animal and makes diligent efforts to recapture the animal
2) owner is in the act of recapturing the animal
3) animal periodically leaves the property but regularly returns - Trespassers - when trespassers capture property, they do so for the owner of the property they are trespassing upon.
- Statute - if statute prohibits capture of un-owned property, then penalties may be imposed including forfeiture of right to title by capture.
Ways to Acquire - Creation
General - products of the mind are protected by federal copyright statutes.
Claim Reqs. - to have a cliam for infringment of copyright, the author must
1) show the work is actually produced
2) show the work is original
3) covert the idea into fied, tangible medium of expression
4) show the copyright was registered
Length - copyright lasts for author’s lifetime plus 70 years
Ways to Acquire - Conversion
General Rule - someone who has converted the property of another without good title to it cannot pass along good title to a 3rd party
Exceptions
- Money - transfers of money or other negotiable goods from the converter to an innocent third party
- Goods - transfer of goods that were obtained through fraud or misrepresentation to good faith purchaser
- Damage - owner whose property has been delivered impropertly or substantially damaged can bring a claim for conversion and can force the breacher to purchase the goods from the original owenr and pay what the price of the goods would have been
Ways to Acquire - Finders Law
Note - covers abandoned, lost, misplaced property
Abandoned
Rule - if someone expressly and intentionally abandons property, it becomes unowned and available for capture by the finder using methods previously coverd
Note - if unclaimed for a sufficent time, property will escheat to the state
Lost, Misplace, Treasure Trove
Note - finder can take title but is subject to a superior claim from original owner
Lost - original owner unintentionallyputs them in some place unknown to owner and owner has no real idea where it is.
Inferior - finder claim inferiror to true owner and underlying land owner if 1) finder is trespasser on land 2) lands is private proeprty and general public not invited there or 3) goods are attached/embedded in the land
Employee - finder/employee must turn over property to employee if found while performing duties
OHIO - employee need not yield property to employer
Misplaced - property is misplaced if original owner intentionally put them down somewhere and forgot to retrieve them
Inferior - finder’s interest is inferior to true owner or rightful possessor of land on which goods are misplaced
Treasure Trove - goods are a treasure trove if intentionally concealed in anticipation of retreving them at a later date and is treated as lost.
Quasi Bailee - finder is treated as this and can treat as their property until true property owner claims it but they have a duty to locate the true owner.
Uniform Dispotion of Unclaimed Property Act
General - deals with disposition of intangible property (money, stocks, items in a safe deposit bank) and what to do if it goes unclaimed.
Ways to Acquire - Accession Generally
Rule - occurs when some personal property is altered by the addition or application of labor or other personal property to the original property.
Generally - materials accessed to the original property is transfered to the owner of the original goods
Two issues with innocent trespassers and willful trespassers
Ways to Acquire - Accession - Innocent Trespasser
Innocent Trespasser - genuinely, but wrongly, believes he is improving his own goods with his own materials.
Situations:
- if accession can be remvoed without harming goods, then is removed.
- if accession cannot be removed without harming goods, then original owner will retain property in improved state unless:
a. accession of property transforms it into substantially different item
b. if not substantially different, but owner feels property was damaged by accession, then can seek compensation
c. if not substantially different, but trespasser will keep property, then must pay original owner value of goods taken
Ways to Acquire - Accession - Willful Trespasser
Rule - willful trespasser gets nothing and owes the original owner for any damages caused
Ways to Acquire - Confusion
Rule - if everyone has the same item together in one place and no one is able to discern their property from the other owners
Situations:
- if no one wrongfully contributed to teh confusion, then all of the propery owners are tenants in common in proportion to their contribution to the pile
- if no one wrongfuly contributed to the confusion and the proportion of shares is unknown, then everyone shares out the mass equally
- if someone wrongfully contributed to the confusion, then that person must demonstrate her contribution to the pile, and if unable to do so, then takes nothing and remainder is divided among non-wrongful parties
Ways to Acquire - Adverse Possession
Rule - five requirements
- actual
- open and notorious
- exclusive
- continuous
- hostile
Note - issue is always with open and notoriousd as its hard to display something taken
Tacking - may tack so long as there is privity beteween the trespassing parties
Ways to Acquire - Gift - Inter-Vivos
General - voluntary transfer of ownership of property without payment nor consideration where donor intends to make such a gift, delivery is perfected, and the gift is accepted.
Promise - a promise to give an object in the future is not binding unless 1) there is consideration or 2) there as been reasonable reliance
a. Donor Intent - donor must have mental capacity to intend something and the gift may be conditional (e.g., wedding gift)
Note - gifts between fianc’es are unconditional, except for the ring, unless a condition was expressly declared
b. Delivery - delivery perfected if it is a clear manifestation of the donor’s intent to relinquish her title and possessory interest
Note - decisive factor is if the donor has power to reclaim the property
Three ways to deliver gift:
- Physical actual delivery
- Constructive delivery - if actual, physical delivery impracticable then donor can instead surrender control of item.
Note - simple declaration is insufficient; there must be some demonstrative delivery, express signed writing is permitted.
- Symbolic delivery - delivery of formal manifestation of inchoate goods that symbolizes the gift is sufficient
Note - delivery of stock certificate is sufficient; delivery of check is not sufficient until cashed
c. Acceptance - acceptance is presumed; a gift is not rejected unles te rejection is clear
Ways to Acquire - Gift - Causa Mortis
General - gifts given in anticipation of genuinely impending death
Rule - requires
- intent
- delivery
- acceptance
- made in contemplation of impeding death
Revocable - grantor can revoke until death; if person recovers, automatically revoked
Personal Property - gifts causa mortis ONLY apply to personal property (not real property)
Ways to Acquire - Gift - Minors
OHIO - irrevocable gifts can be given to minors for tax exclusion purposes but the minor does not receevie the property until they reach majority age and is controlled by a custodian until this age.
