75 research outputs found
Liberty at the Borders of Private Law
Liberty is both dependent upon and limited by the State. The State protects individuals from the coercion of others, but paradoxically, it must exercise coercion itself in doing so. Unfortunately, the reliance on the State to deter coercion raises the possibility that the State’s powers of coercion might be abused. There is, not surprisingly, therefore, a wide range of literature on the relationship between law and liberty, but most of it focuses on the relationship between public law and liberty. This Article focuses on the relationship between private law and liberty. Private laws are enforced by courts. Since the judiciary is a branch of government, and courts ultimately derive their authority from the State, the State’s power of coercion is implicated by judicial enforcements of private laws. In fact, the State’s role in creating and enforcing private laws is no less important to liberty than its role in creating and enforcing public laws, since private legal arrangements increasingly affect deeply personal and intimate parts of peoples’ lives, including their uses of their own homes as well as their lifestyle choices and moral decisions. This Article observes that the enforcement of some private legal rules and doctrines serves to advance liberty but that the enforcement of others impinges upon it. It also therefore suggests ways in which liberty could be advanced by reforming certain private laws or by limiting the role of courts in the enforcement of some private legal arrangements
The Power to Exclude and the Power to Expel
Property laws have far-reaching implications for the way people live and for the opportunities they and their children will have. They also have important consequences for property developers and businesses, both large and small. It is not surprising, therefore, that modern developments in property law have been so strongly influenced by political pressures. Unfortunately, those with the most economic resources and political power have had the most telling influences on the development of property laws in the United States during the twentieth century. This Article introduces a simple game—the Not-In-My-Backyard Game —to illustrate the motivations of various parties with interests in the direction of American property law. As the analysis indicates, affluent residents and owners of upscale businesses have incentives to pressure suburban governments for zoning regulations that effectively exclude less affluent residents from their neighborhoods. Affluent residents and corporations who want to relocate into urban neighborhoods have incentives to pressure city governments to use eminent domain to facilitate urban redevelopment projects, and the takings that ensue often effectively expel many less affluent residents and smaller businesses from their neighborhoods. The analysis accords with the historical evidence. In the early twentieth century, suburban governments began to use zoning ordinances to exclude poor and less affluent residents from suburban neighborhoods. Around the middle of the twentieth century, city governments began to use takings to effectively expel less affluent residents and smaller businesses from urban neighborhoods. The United States Supreme Court upheld the powers of local governments to exclude and expel, and state courts acquiesced to them. The consequences are high and rising land prices, unaffordable housing, homelessness, and the perpetuation of the de facto segregation of the American people by income, wealth, race, ethnicity, religion, and national origin
Exacting Inclusion: Property Theory, the Character of Government Action, and Implicit Takings
Recent takings cases challenging inclusionary housing ordinances tap into an ongoing controversy about whether government interventions in the housing market do more harm than good; but they also raise much more general questions about takings law. This Article uses the controversy raised by recent housing cases to probe the relationship between the Supreme Court’s regulatory takings jurisprudence and its exaction takings jurisprudence and to suggest a more coherent approach to implicit takings. The Court’s exaction takings jurisprudence is well-designed if it is applied appropriately. As a general matter, it encourages the mitigation of socially harmful nuisances, incentivizes developers to make socially desirable decisions about how to develop their properties, and protects private property from overreaching administrators who might abuse their discretion to usurp surpluses from the owners’ development projects. This Article offers guidelines for determining when the Court’s exaction takings jurisprudence should apply. It also proposes that, in some circumstances, a property owner should be able to make an exaction takings claim and a regulatory takings claim. Finally, it offers a roadmap for analyzing implicit takings claims more coherently. Under that roadmap, whether inclusionary housing programs should be subjected to the nexus and rough proportionality tests depends upon how they are designed
SCOTUS in the Strait of Messina: Steering the Course between Private Rights and Public Powers
The greatest challenge for any civilized society is to find the appropriate balance of rights and responsibilities between the individual and society. In the United States, the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of the line between individual rights and governmental powers. The prerogatives and protections for private property rights help to define that line. The Supreme Court has developed two distinct bodies of constitutional jurisprudence bearing on the protections for private property, one under the doctrine of substantive due process and the other under the Takings Clause. But the appropriate balance has been difficult to achieve, and the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence has been prone to slippage. Thus, substantive due process has lost its teeth. Unless fundamental rights are implicated, modern substantive due process claims are so unlikely to succeed they are rarely worth making. Modern takings jurisprudence has not lost its teeth, but it has become incoherent and dysfunctional. The Supreme Court does not apply its takings jurisprudence consistently across different types of claims, and its expansive interpretation of public uses has allowed government takings powers to be exploited by powerful political interests. Takings jurisprudence could be made more coherent and less dysfunctional by clarifying the nuisance rule, extending the public use requirement to all takings, and narrowing the interpretation of public uses. These refinements of takings law would empower governments to resolve nuisance conflicts, improve the coherence of the Court’s jurisprudence across different types of takings, constrain governments from using their regulatory and takings powers on behalf of special interests, and reduce the burden of government on private property
Clearing The Clouds On The CISG’S Warranty Of Title
The risk of intellectual property infringement claims poses an increasing threat to international trade. The UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) is the most prevalent body of law governing international sales. Important questions will inevitably arise, therefore, under the CISG about the scope of the seller’s warranty of title. Courts will be called upon to interpret Article 42 of the CISG, which provides a warranty of title governing third-party intellectual property claims, or the parties’ contract if they execute a customized warranty of title term. This Article analyzes the appropriate scope of the seller’s warranty of title against third party intellectual property claims under the CISG. It draws on the CISG’s legislative history, the CISG case law, the underlying policy of the warranty of title, and an important German Supreme Court precedent in an analogous case to reject the “cloud on title” standard that has been applied in U.S. cases under the Uniform Commercial Code. This Article argues instead that, unless the parties’ contract clearly indicates otherwise, the seller under a CISG contract should only be held liable for third-party intellectual property claims against the buyer if (1) the buyer resells the goods in the seller’s jurisdiction and the claim arises under the intellectual property laws in the seller’s jurisdiction, (2) the buyer informed the seller about the third-party’s intellectual property rights prior to contracting, or (3) due to special circumstances, such as the seller having a branch in the jurisdiction under which the third-party’s intellectual property rights are created, the seller—but not the buyer—knew or should have known about the third-party’s intellectual property rights
The Rise of the Corporation, the Birth of Public Relations, and the Foundations of Modern Political Economy
Clearing The Clouds On The CISG’S Warranty Of Title
The risk of intellectual property infringement claims poses an increasing threat to international trade. The UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) is the most prevalent body of law governing international sales. Important questions will inevitably arise, therefore, under the CISG about the scope of the seller’s warranty of title. Courts will be called upon to interpret Article 42 of the CISG, which provides a warranty of title governing third-party intellectual property claims, or the parties’ contract if they execute a customized warranty of title term. This Article analyzes the appropriate scope of the seller’s warranty of title against third party intellectual property claims under the CISG. It draws on the CISG’s legislative history, the CISG case law, the underlying policy of the warranty of title, and an important German Supreme Court precedent in an analogous case to reject the “cloud on title” standard that has been applied in U.S. cases under the Uniform Commercial Code. This Article argues instead that, unless the parties’ contract clearly indicates otherwise, the seller under a CISG contract should only be held liable for third-party intellectual property claims against the buyer if (1) the buyer resells the goods in the seller’s jurisdiction and the claim arises under the intellectual property laws in the seller’s jurisdiction, (2) the buyer informed the seller about the third-party’s intellectual property rights prior to contracting, or (3) due to special circumstances, such as the seller having a branch in the jurisdiction under which the third-party’s intellectual property rights are created, the seller—but not the buyer—knew or should have known about the third-party’s intellectual property rights
- …