Property Posts
The Capitalization of Incomplete Property Rights to the Groundwater Commons
Incomplete property rights are common across a range of natural resources such as fisheries and groundwater. This paper takes a hedonic approach to understanding how three core features of prior appropriation water rights in Kansas—access, allocation, and seniority—confer value to irrigated farmland.
October 2023 Council Meeting Updates
At its meeting on October 19 and 20, 2023, the Council reviewed and discussed Council Drafts of the following projects and approved drafts and portions of drafts as listed.
Toward a Tribal Role in Groundwater Management
This Article considers the Agua Caliente groundwater litigation a decade since its inception and outlines the present opportunity to reimagine the role of tribes in groundwater management.
Section 8 vouchers take center stage in dispute between landlord and disabled tenant
Federal law bars housing discrimination against a person with a disability. Under the Fair Housing Act, landlords and sellers must provide “reasonable accommodations” to give someone with a disability “equal opportunity” to rent or buy a home. These cases examine whether the FHA requires landlords to accept so-called Section 8 vouchers from tenants who are too disabled to work.
U.S. Supreme Court Decisions, Both Decided May 25, 2023, Protect Private Property Owners from Overreach by Local (Tax Sale) and Federal (Wetlands) Regulators: Tyler v. Hennepin County and Sackett v. EPA
This piece analyzes two U.S. Supreme Court rulings that expand the constitutional protections afforded private property owners in two regulatory contexts—tax sales administered by local governments and the EPA’s classification of wetlands as “waters under the United States” under the Clean Water Act.
Property and Sovereignty in America: A History of Title Registries & Jurisdictional Power
This Article tells an untold history of the American title registry—a colonial bureaucratic innovation that, though overlooked and understudied, constitutes one of the most fundamental elements of the U.S. property system today.
Takings, Original Meaning, and Applying Property Law Principles To Fix Penn Central
This article contends that the term “property” as used in the Takings Clause is a group of rights, the essential being the right to possess, the right to exclude others, the right to alienate, and most saliently, the right to beneficial use.
Justices rule Minnesota county violated takings clause
The Supreme Court ruled that Hennepin County’s actions violated the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause, which bars the government from taking private property for public use without adequately compensating the property owner.
Forced Pooling: The Unconstitutional Taking of Private Property
Recent changes in the law and the oil and gas industry both justify a reexamination of forced pooling on constitutional takings grounds. This Article will therefore take a fresh look at forced pooling schemes through the lens of modern takings jurisprudence.
Justices appear likely to side with homeowner in foreclosure dispute
Justices heard arguments in Tyler v. Hennepin County, Minnesota to assess if taking and selling a home to satisfy a debt to the government, and keeping the surplus value as a windfall, violates the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause and if the forfeiture of property worth far more than needed to satisfy a debt, plus interest, penalties, and costs, is a fine within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment.