The Demarcation of Land and the Role of Coordinating Institutions

This paper examines the economic effects of the two dominant land demarcation systems, metes and bounds (MB) and the rectangular system (RS). Under MB property is demarcated by its perimeter as indicated by natural features and human structures and linked to surveys within local political jurisdictions. Under RS land demarcation is governed by a common grid with uniform square shapes, sizes, alignment, and geographically-based addresses. In the U.S. MB is used principally in the original 13 states, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The RS is found elsewhere under the Land Ordinance of 1785 that divided federal lands into square-mile sections. We develop an economic framework for examining land demarcation systems and draw predictions. Our empirical analysis focuses on a 39-county area of Ohio where both MB and RS were used in adjacent areas as a result of exogenous historical factors. The results indicate that topography influences parcel shape and size under a MB system; that parcel shapes are aligned under the RS; and that the RS is associated with higher land values, more roads, more land transactions, and fewer legal disputes than MB, all else equal. The comparative limitations of MB appear to have had negative long-term effects on land values and economic activity in the sample area.

Old School Catalog 1916-17, The Department of Law

https://scholar.valpo.edu/oldschoolcatalogs/1105/thumbnail.jp

Old School Catalog 1912-13, The Department of Law

https://scholar.valpo.edu/oldschoolcatalogs/1011/thumbnail.jp

Civil Forfeiture: A Higher Form of Commercial Law?

In this Article, Messrs. Schwarcz and Rothman analyze the disquieting impact of civil forfeiture law on creditors\u27 rights. The Article begins by describing the historical origins of civil forfeiture and its development into current day law. The Article then explores the tension between forfeiture law and commercial and bankruptcy law by examining the effect of a forfeiture action on unsecured and undersecured creditors. The Article evaluates a recent model for balancing governmental and commercial law interests, and concludes by suggesting reforms to the present civil forfeiture scheme

Law as Asymmetric Information: Theory, Application, and Results in the Context of Foreign Direct Investment in Real Estate

In his seminal 1970 article on lemon markets, George Akerlof posited the possibility of market failure in the presence of asymmetric information regarding a good’s value. In the intervening four decades, the importance of accurate valuation information has grown as transnational trade has boomed. The aim of the instant article is to assess the potential impact on transnational trade of asymmetric information regarding the legal attributes of a given good. Inaccurate or asymmetric information regarding relevant legal attributes may give rise to the same problem of market failure that Akerlof initially posited. If buyers are unsure of the ownership of a good, its conveyability, or their rights and obligations in a given transaction, they might decline to transact at all. If these legal uncertainties are pervasive, transactions in that market might cease to take place altogether. Nonetheless, consistent with the remainder of Akerlof’s article, the presence of certain counteracting institutions may lessen the impact of asymmetric information, thus forestalling market failure. These counteracting institutions in the context of asymmetric information regarding legal attributes would include a fully and fairly functioning judiciary, publicized and lucid laws and regulations, and other such mechanisms that would make clear the rights and obligations of all parties to a transaction. Thus, this article addresses the possibility of law as asymmetric information in the general sense and the specific, by assessing whether asymmetries regarding property law might contribute to market failure in the context of foreign direct investment in real estate. Regardless of whether that market is a lemons market, the conclusions of this article support systemic reform in the property regimes of developing and transition economies, to ensure that shortcomings in the institutional and legal frameworks of these states do not hinder fuller economic development

The Problem of Offer and Acceptance: A Study of Implied-in-Fact Contracts in Islamic Law and the Common Law

Every student of Islamic law is familiar with the formation of contract by offer (jdb) and acceptance (qabud). Of the rules of jdb and qabul one can quote Karl Llewellyn\u27s statement about their common law counterparts: they have been worked over; they have been written over; they have been shaped and rubbed smooth with pumice, they wear the rich deep polish of a thousand classrooms. \u27 The apparent prominence of offer and acceptance in the two legal systems, however, should not mislead one into seeing similarity where there is significant difference. Some of these differences are the subject of this paper. This paper will argue two things: one that offer and acceptance play a vastly more important role in the Islamic than in the common law of contract, the other that the Islamic law of contract bears a more significant resemblance to the medieval action of debt than to our modern law of contract. For reasons that will become apparent, this paper will focus on the implied-in-fact contract, that is, the contract formed without an express verbal exchange of offer and acceptance

The Problem of Offer and Acceptance: A Study of Implied-in-Fact Contracts in Islamic Law and the Common Law

Every student of Islamic law is familiar with the formation of contract by offer (jdb) and acceptance (qabud). Of the rules of jdb and qabul one can quote Karl Llewellyn\u27s statement about their common law counterparts: they have been worked over; they have been written over; they have been shaped and rubbed smooth with pumice, they wear the rich deep polish of a thousand classrooms. \u27 The apparent prominence of offer and acceptance in the two legal systems, however, should not mislead one into seeing similarity where there is significant difference. Some of these differences are the subject of this paper. This paper will argue two things: one that offer and acceptance play a vastly more important role in the Islamic than in the common law of contract, the other that the Islamic law of contract bears a more significant resemblance to the medieval action of debt than to our modern law of contract. For reasons that will become apparent, this paper will focus on the implied-in-fact contract, that is, the contract formed without an express verbal exchange of offer and acceptance