Luvern V. Rieke: In Memoriam

This will be very personal. It must be, to get the measure of the man. Luvern V. Rieke was my teacher, confidante, colleague, and friend. He was a product of the State of Washington, from the small town of Cashmere—euphonious name, just east of the Cascades, between Leavenworth and Wenatchee, home of Aplets and Cotlets. His parents were German; it was their native language—and Lutheran, Lutheran in the marrow of their bones. During World War II, Captain Luvern Rieke was in the Army Air Corps, with service in China: a Flying Tiger. After the war, he studied a time, for some reason (probably because it was a Lutheran school), at Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. There he met and married Jane, his gracious life mate and now widow. Returning to Seattle, he received his B.S. in 1948, his LL.B. in 1949, from the University of Washington. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Law Review and Order of the Coif

Harry Maybury Cross: In Memoriam

Just because you were from Ritzville, where Harry Cross was born on August 23, 1913, it would not mean you were ritzy. The town is a plain one, named, for a plain man, Philip Ritz, in the plains country of Eastern Washington, the county seat of Adams County. There Harry Cross grew up, graduating from Ritzville High School, valedictorian of his class. His parents were substantial citizens of the town, his father the owner of a title insurance company and a sometime member of the Washington State Legislature. All three of the Cross brothers must have been influenced by their father\u27s occupation; they probably helped in the business in their spare time. Brother Edward was to become a lawyer in Ritzville, and brother Robert was a future insurance agency owner in Eugene, Oregon. Harry, of course, had an abiding interest in titles and title insurance, working part-time during law school in a Seattle title insurance company and later, as a legal scholar, having a special interest in those areas of law

A General Theory of Eminent Domain

In perspective, then, the constitutional eminent domain clauses are not ends in themselves, nor are they beginnings. They are formal, concise statements of principles recognized and enshrined, but not invented, by the constitution maker. The real significance and meaning of these principles, therefore, depends on the discovery of their historical and theoretical development, rather than solely on the interpretations of the constitutions. The purpose of this article is to develop a framework, based on that discovery, for analyzing the principles of eminent domain. It will impose order upon our inquiry if we organize it under the following heads: the act of taking, the compensation requirement, the public-purpose limitation, and the concept of property

Back to the Crib?

First, let me note that this Rembe Lecture honors Toni Rembe, Esq., a distinguished graduate of this law school, class of 1960. Toni and I knew each other as fellow students and members of the Washington Law Review, since I was class of 1959. After graduating here, she took a Master of Laws in taxation at New York University in 1961. Then she joined the premier San Francisco law firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, where she has long been the head of the tax law division. Toni, who is a Seattle native, has maintained her ties to this city. Among her other honors and positions, she is a director of Safeco Insurance Company. Also, let me thank Toni\u27s husband, Arthur Rock, for making it possible for us to honor her today. He is a leading—we can without exaggeration say famous —San Francisco venture capitalist, whose generous gift funds the Rembe Lectureship

The Law Between Landlord and Tenant in Washington: Part II

Part I of this two-part series appears at 49 Wash. L. Rev. 291 (1974)

The Law Between Landlord and Tenant in Washington: Part I

This article will be as utilitarian as a fence post. It is intended as a handbook for lawyers who need to know something about all or part of the law between landlord and tenant in Washington. The level of analysis will be didactic and exegetical, occasionally critical or hortatory, rarely jurisprudential

Running Covenants: An Analytical Primer

Save for the subject of perpetuities (and arguably even including it), there is no subject encountered by law students in their basic property courses that so baffles them as does running covenants. But there seems to be no concise writing that lays out the subject of running covenants in a nutshell. It is not that nothing has been written on the subject, for much has been published this century on it and continues to be. The problem is that the writings deal with smaller or greater portions of the overall field. There are articles on real covenants, on equitable restrictions, on covenants in leases, and on various aspects or problems of these subjects. There is a wearisome run of articles criticizing and defending the Restatement of Property\u27s stand on real covenants. What law students need, however, is a succinct statement that is compendious and, above all, that imposes a rigorous framework of analysis on an area of law that is as shapeless as an amoeba. Not only do fledgling lawyers need such a statement, but, the cases cry out, so do their seniors of the bench and bar. Surely there is no area of American law in which judicial decisions are more confused—or wholly lacking—in analysis. Analysis, then, will be the keynote here. The first and largest step will be to divide, for analysis purposes, the subject of running covenants into two major areas: real covenants and equitable restrictions. Even though the decisions increasingly fail to distinguish the two, as do many writings, they developed as separate doctrines and in separate courts. Each must be studied separately if one is to understand their close connection. Within these two major divisions, subdivisions will be built around the elements of real covenants and of equitable restrictions. Again, it is true that the decisions chronically fail to identify the elements in issue, but clear analysis requires it. A final division of the article will assess where the law of running covenants seems to be, and where it might profitably be, headed