The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Board of Adjustment: Fifty Years Later

Fifty years ago, Jesse Dukeminier, Jr. and Clyde Stapleton published a case study of the practice of law before the Lexington-Fayette Urban County (LFUC) Board of Adjustment. This Article presents a new empirical study of the LFUC Board of Adjustment. Specifically, the study covers the eighteen month period from the Board’s July 2007 meeting through its December 2008 meeting. This Article discusses how the practice has changed and improved in the years since the Dukeminier-Stapleton study and the problems and difficulties that still remain. The Article begins by describing the current procedure before the LFUC Board of Adjustment and how it has changed since the Dukeminier-Stapleton study. It then addresses the three basic types of appeals the Board considers: (1) variances, (2) conditional use permits, and (3) administrative appeals from the zoning administrator. With respect to each type of appeal, the Article first describes the governing law and how it has changed since the Dukeminier-Stapleton study. It then provides an empirical study of the Board’s voting behavior. The Article concludes with an overview of the ways in which the law and practice have changed since the Dukeminier-Stapleton study and the problems that remain

Supplying Organs for Transplantation

The possibility that a market for organs will develop arises as a result of recent scientific successes in interchanging human parts and the consequent imbalance that has arisen between the quantity of organs supplied and the quantity demanded. Currently, and in the foreseeable future, unless our laws are changed, the quantity supplied will not equal the quantity demanded at a zero price. When useful items are in short supply in a market economy monetary inducements to increase the supply are commonly offered. The question then arises whether society should permit such inducements in order to ensure a satisfactory supply of human organs. That question does not have a short, easy answer

Why New Hampshire Should Permit Married Couples to Choose Community Property

[Excerpt] “Two states, Alaska and Tennessee, offer married couples the choice of holding their property as separate or community property. Another nine states use community property as the default arrangement. Yet in each of those nine states a couple can opt out of community property rules by agreement. Only in the remaining thirty-nine states are married couples forced to accept separate property. There is no good reason for this condition to exist. This essay sets forth the advantages of offering married couples the choice of community or separate property and deals with some expected objections to this proposal. Section I details the benefits of choice. Section II examines likely objections and finds those objections insufficient to reject the proposal.

The Rise of the Perpetual Trust

For more than two centuries, the Rule against Perpetuities has served as the chief means of limiting a transferor\u27s power to tie up property by way of successive contingent interests. But recently, at least seventeen jurisdictions in the United States have enacted statutes abolishing the Rule in the case of perpetual (or near-perpetual) trusts. The prime mover behind this important development has been the federal Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax. This Article traces the gradual decline of the common law Rule against Perpetuities, considers the dynamics behind the recent wave of state legislation, examines the problems that might result from the rise of perpetual trusts, and suggests some possible solutions

Review of Jesse Dukeminier and James E. Krier, Property (4th Edition 1998)

Professors Dukeminier and Krier\u27s property casebook is reputed to be the market leader in Property casebooks; I have heard estimates that it has as much as a fifty percent market share. This position is well-deserved-the casebook is thorough, comprehensive, well-written, error free, and, a significant feature for new teachers, has the best teacher\u27s manual I have encountered for any casebook in any subject. IBM once sold computers because No one ever got fired for choosing IBM. An analogous claim can be made for this casebook-no one ever provoked significant faculty or student unrest by choosing Dukeminier and Krier. In this review, I will concentrate on two perspectives on the book. I first taught Property in the spring 1998 semester (using the third edition of Dukeminier and Krier) and am (as I write this) about to begin my second year of teaching the course. I can thus give the perspective of a new teacher of the subject. In addition, I am an economist as well as a lawyer and am deeply fascinated by legal history. I try to bring both law and economics and historical perspectives to my teaching. I therefore offer an evaluation of the book with respect to its ambitions in those areas