Property
The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property seeks to bring comprehensiveness and coherence to American property law. Subjects to be covered include: the classification of entitlements, possession, accession, and acquisition; ownership powers; protection of and limits on ownership; divided and shared ownership; title and transfer; easements, servitudes, and land use; and public rights and takings.
The following is a tentative Table of Contents.
Volume 1: The Basics of Property
Division One: General Definitions
Section 1. Property
Section 2. Things
Section 3. Ownership
Section 4. Owner
Section 5 Title
Section 6. Relativity of Title
[Possible additional topics: Contracts as Property, Property in Information, Entitlement and Interest, In Rem Rights, Residual Claims, Customary Rights, Quasi-Property]
Division Two: Possession
Chapter 1: Possession
Chapter 2: Adverse Possession
Division Three: Accession
Chapter 1: Newborn Animals
Chapter 2: Earnings on Financial Instruments
Chapter 3: Combinations
Chapter 4: Fixtures
Chapter 5: Air Rights and Subsurface Rights
Chapter 6: Crops and Vegetation
Volume 2: Interferences with, and Limits on, Ownership and Possession
Division One: Property Torts
Chapter 1: Trespass to Land
Chapter 2: Nuisance
Chapter 3: Conversion and Trespass to Personal Property
Chapter 4: Property Torts and Remedies
Division Two: Mutual Default Rights
Chapter 1. Customary Rights and Privileges
Chapter 2. Air and Light
Chapter 3. Water Rights
Chapter 4. Lateral Support
Division Three: Limits on Possessory Rights
Chapter 1. Owner Duties
Chapter 2. Custom
Chapter 3. Public Accommodations
Chapter 4. Antidiscrimination
Chapter 5. Public Policy
Chapter 6. Equitable Limits and Abuse of Right
Volume 3: POWERS AND DUtiES ASSOCIATED WITH OWNERSHIP
Division One: Owner Powers
Chapter 1. Powers in General
Chapter 2. Power of Alienation
Chapter 3. Gifts
Chapter 4. Sales [with pointer to the UCC]
Chapter 5. Testation and Succession [with pointers to Wills, Trusts, and Estates]
Chapter 6. Power to Create Lesser Interests
Chapter 7. Domains of Power
Chapter 8. Abandonment
Chapter 9. Destruction
Chapter 10. Other Powers [pointers to powers of appointment, agent’s powers, equitable powers, reference to creation of security interests]
Division Two: Licenses
Chapter 11. Licenses Defined
Chapter 12. Durability of Licenses
Chapter 13. License Versus Contract
Chapter 14. Relation to Possessory Remedies
Division Three: Bailments
Section 1. Definition of Bailment
Section 2. Exclusive Possession by the Bailee
Section 3. Types of Bailment Formation
Section 4. Formation of Actual Bailment
Section 5. Formation of Constructive Bailment
Section 6. Circumstances Justifying Constructive Bailment
Section 7. Categories of Bailment Relationship
Section 8. Bailment Scope
Section 9. Rights of Bailors
Section 10. Duties of Bailors
Section 11. Rights of Bailees
Section 12. Duties of Bailees
Section 13. Standards of Care Applicable to Bailees
Section 14. Burdens of Proof
Section 15. Alteration of the Standard of Care by Contract
Section 16. Limitations on Parties’ Ability to Modify Bailee Liability
Volume 4: DIVIDED AND SHARED OWNERSHIP
Division One: The Estate System
Chapter 1. The Forms of Ownership
Chapter 2. Present Interests: Classification
Chapter 3. Future Interests: Classification
Chapter 4. Maintaining and Simplifying the Estate System
Chapter 5. Waste
Chapter 6. Maintaining the Estate System
Chapter 7. Simplifying the Estate System
Chapter 8. Waste
Division Two: Co-ownership
Chapter 1. Co-ownership in General
Chapter 2. Tenancy in Common
Chapter 3. Joint Tenancy
Chapter 4. Tenancy by the Entirety
Chapter 5. Marital property [pointers]
Chapter 6. Tenancy in Partnership [pointers]
Chapter 7. Contribution
Chapter 8. Accounting
Chapter 9. Severance
Chapter 10. Partition
Chapter 11. Relation to Unjust enrichment and equity [pointer to Restatement Third of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment]
Division Three: Landlord and Tenant
Chapter 1. Types of Leases
Chapter 2. Term of Years
Chapter 3. Tenancy at Will
Chapter 4. Periodic Tenancy
Chapter 5. Tenancy at Sufferance
Chapter 6. Dependent and Independent Covenants
Chapter 7. Transfers of the Landlord Interests
Chapter 8. Transfers of the Tenant Interests
Chapter 9. Assignments
Chapter 10. Subleases
Chapter 11. Approval Clauses
Chapter 12. Agricultural, Commercial, and Residential Tenancies
Chapter 13. Tenant’s Possessory Rights
Chapter 14. Rent
Chapter 15. Security Deposit
Chapter 16. Illegal Leases
Chapter 17. Quiet Enjoyment
Chapter 18. Constructive Eviction
Chapter 19. Implied Warranty of Habitability
Chapter 20. Termination in General
Chapter 21. Eviction and its Limits
Chapter 22. Mitigation of Damages
Chapter 23. Surrender
Chapter 24. Forfeiture
Chapter 25. Abandonment
Chapter 26. Merger/Extinguishment
Chapter 27. Regulation of Short-Term Rentals
Chapter 28. Tenants’ Relationship with Mortgage Lenders
Chapter 29. Leases of Personal Property
Division Four: Common Interest Communities
Chapter 1. Defined
Chapter 2. Condominiums
Chapter 3. Cooperatives
Chapter 4. Creation
Chapter 5. Association Powers
Chapter 6. Rule Making
Chapter 7. Rights of Association Members
Chapter 8. Board Powers
Chapter 9. Assessments
Chapter 10. Enforcement
Chapter 11. Amendments
Division Five: Trusts
Chapter 1. Legal and Equitable Title [pointer to Wills, Trusts, and Estates]
Chapter 2. Protection against Third parties
Chapter 3. Good Faith Purchasers
Chapter 4. Organizational Property
Volume 5: TITLE and TRANSFERS of OWNERSHIP
Division One: Title
Section 1. Title Defined
Section 2. Nemo Dat
Section 3. Definition of Encumbrance
Section 4. Satisfaction of Encumbrances
Section 5. Bar on Encumbrances by Laches, Statutes of Limitation, and Marketable Title Acts
Division Two: Transfer
Chapter 1. Contracts for Purchase and Sale of Present Estates in Real Property
Chapter 2. Deeds of Conveyance
Division Three: Recording
Chapter 1. Recording Requirements and Documents Eligible for Recording
Chapter 2. Recording Acts
Chapter 3. Bona Fide Purchasers
Chapter 4. Types of Notice
Chapter 5. Defects That Cause Documents to Fail to Impart Record Notice
Chapter 6. Marketable Title Acts
Chapter 7. Title Disputes and Quiet Title Actions
Division Four: Mortgages
Chapter 1. Security Interests in General
Chapter 2. Non-Mortgage Liens
Chapter 3. Creation of Mortgages
Chapter 4. Future Advances
Chapter 5. Mortgagor’s Equity of Redemption and Mortgage Substitutes
Chapter 6. Rights and Duties of the Parties Prior to Foreclosure
Chapter 7. Transfers of Mortgaged Real Estate and Mortgages
Chapter 8. Payment and Discharge
Chapter 9. Priorities
Chapter 10. Foreclosure
Chapter 11. Security Interests in Personal Property [pointer to the UCC]
Volume 6: Servitudes
Division One: Servitudes
Chapter 1. Definitions
Chapter 2. Creation of Servitudes
Chapter 3. Validity of Servitude Arrangements
Chapter 4. Interpretation of Servitudes
Chapter 5. Succession to Benefits and Burdens of Servitudes
Chapter 6. Common-Interest Communities
Chapter 7. Modification and Termination of Servitudes
Chapter 8. Enforcement of Servitudes
Division Two: Easements
Chapter 1. Defined
Chapter 2. Contrasted with Licenses, Leases, and Reciprocal Default Rights
Chapter 3. Appurtenant Easements
Chapter 4. In Gross Easements
Chapter 5. Positive Easements
Chapter 6. Negative Easements
Chapter 7. Types of Easements (incl. Conservation, Preservation, Solar, Wind)
Chapter 8. Creation of Easements
Chapter 9. Grant
Chapter 10. Necessity
Chapter 11. Implication
Chapter 12. Prescription
Chapter 13. Estoppel
Chapter 14. Private Eminent Domain [pointer eminent domain, Volume 8]
Chapter 15. Misuse of Easements
Chapter 16. Alteration of Easements
Chapter 17. Termination of Easements
Chapter 18. Servitudes on Personal Property
Division 3: Covenants
Chapter 1. Defined
Chapter 2. Relation to Contract
Chapter 3. Public Policy
Chapter 4. Restraints on Alienation
Chapter 5. Running
Chapter 6. Alteration
Chapter 7. Termination of Covenants
Chapter 8. Valuation
Chapter 9. Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions [incl. pointer to Vol. 4, Div. 4]
Volume 7: PUBLIC LOCAL LAND-USE REGULATION
Division One: Zoning
Chapter 1. The Roots of Zoning Law
Chapter 2. Fundamental Concepts
Chapter 3. Regulating Land Use, Structures, and Lots
Chapter 4. Process
Chapter 5. Roles of Various Groups in Zoning
Chapter 6. Flexibility Tools
Chapter 7. Nonconforming Rights
Division Two: Planning
Section 1. Planning Authority
Section 2. Adoption
Section 3. Relationship of Comprehensive Plan to Zoning
Division Two: Subdivision
Section 1. Subdivision Authority
Section 2. Subdivisions Generally
Section 3. Subdivision Standards
Section 4. Subdivision Review
Section 5. Subdivision Approval
Volume 8: Public Rights and Takings
Division 1: Public Rights
Chapter 1. Defined
Chapter 2. Common and Public Rights
Chapter 3. Public Nuisance [pointer to Volume 2]
Chapter 4. Highways
Chapter 5. Navigation
Chapter 6. Public Trust
Chapter 7. Public Land Grants
Chapter 8. Dedication
Chapter 9. Customary Public Rights
Chapter 10. Escheat, Execution, and Forfeiture
Division 2: Eminent Domain
Chapter 1. Defined
Chapter 2. Taxes Distinguished
Chapter 3. Public Use
Chapter 4. Just Compensation
Chapter 5. Partial Takings
Chapter 6. Limiting Legislation
Division 3: Basics of Public Foerbearance
Chapter 1. Defined
Chapter 2. Role of Regulatory Takings
Chapter 3. Anti-Retroactivity
Chapter 4. Vested Rights
Chapter 5. Due Process
Reporters
Henry E. Smith
Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property
Henry Smith is the Fessenden Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he directs the Project on the Foundations of Private Law. Professor Smith has written primarily on the law and economics of property and intellectual property, with a focus on how property-related institutions lower information costs and constrain strategic behavior.
Maureen E. Brady
Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property
Maureen (Molly) E. Brady is an assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School, where she teaches property law and related subjects. Her scholarship uses historical analyses of property institutions and land use doctrines to explore broader theoretical questions. Her current research projects involve the evolution of nuisance rules, the privatization of public space, and state constitutional takings law.
Sara C. Bronin
Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property
Sara Bronin is a Professor at Cornell University and Associate Member of Cornell Law School. She is a Mexican-American architect and attorney whose interdisciplinary research focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places.
Richard R. W. Brooks
Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property
Richard R.W. Brooks is the Emilie M. Bullowa Professor of Law at New York University. He focuses his scholarship on contracts and agency, among other forms of business and social organization. Brooks’ work also includes articles about contract law and theory, experimental economics, the economics of environmental law, fairness, and perceptions of the legal system.
Yun-Chien Chang
Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property
Yun-chien Chang is a Research Professor at Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, Taiwan and serves as the Director of its Empirical Legal Studies Center. His current academic interests focus on economic, empirical and comparative analysis of private law (particularly property law), as well as empirical studies of the judicial system.
R. Wilson Freyermuth
ASSOCIATE REPORTER, THE RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW FOURTH, PROPERTY
R. Wilson Freyermuth joined the University of Missouri Columbia School of Law faculty in 1992. He teaches in the areas of Property, Real Estate, and Secured Transactions, and has co-authored widely-used texts in all three areas. He received MU’s William T. Kemper Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching in 2007, and was appointed a Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor in 2009.
John C. P. Goldberg
Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property
John Goldberg, an expert in tort law, tort theory, and political philosophy, joined the Harvard Law School faculty in 2008. From 1995 until then, he was a faculty member of Vanderbilt Law School, where he served as Associate Dean for Research (2006-08). He is co-author of a leading casebook, Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress (4th ed. 2016), as well as The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Torts (2010).
Brian A. Lee
Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property
Brian Lee is a Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School. His principal research interests are in property and intellectual property, focusing on the intersection between moral reasoning and economic analysis in the law.
Thomas W. Merrill
Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property
Thomas Merrill is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He writes widely in the fields of property and administrative law. Professor Merrill served as the deputy solicitor general for the Department of Justice in the late 1980s. He previously worked for the firm Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood in Chicago.
Christopher M. Newman
Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property
Christopher Newman is an associate professor Scalia Law. Prior to joining the law school, Professor Newman served an Olin/Searle Fellowship in Law at the UCLA School of Law, where he focused on his research and writing in the areas of property theory and intellectual property. Before that, he was a litigation associate with Irell & Manella LLP in Los Angeles, where he represented clients in disputes involving contracts, business torts, intellectual property, corporate and securities litigation, and appellate matters.