Property Outline
A. Actions
I. Ejectment: an action to recover possession and title of land claimed by another
II. Trespass: an action for damages for any intentional and unprivileged entry onto land owned or occupied by another (intentional infringement on possession)
III. Trespass on the case seeks damages for:
(a.) Unintentional but negligent infringement of possession OR
(b.)Intentional infringement of nonpossessory rights
IV. Replevin: an action for repossession of personal property wrongfully taken
V. Trover: recovery of damages for the conversion of personal property; damages are generally the value of the property
VI. Conversion: wrongful possession of another’s property as if it were one’s own; must prove 1) ownership or right to possess property at time of possession, 2) defendant’s wrongful taking or disposing of property, 3) damages
B. Discovery
I. Johnson v. M’Intosh:Ejectment:Discovery and conquest gave G.B. and its successors (VA & US) the exclusive title or the exclusive right to extinguish Indian title to land vesting full title to it in themselves or others; thus, the plaintiffs’ (private individuals) purchases to which neither GB, VA, or the US gave timely consent did not give them/plaintiffs title or the right to possess the land against defendant who later purchased it from the U.S.
(a.) The sovereign decides what are objects of property and the protected relations with respect to them.
(b.)The Indians only have occupancy and not title.Tenant is entitled to possession, but not of title over the land
(c.) A theory of right as opposed to what might be considered the good of society
(1.)Not only were the Indians here before the Americans, but the plaintiffs purchased the land before the defendants bought it
(d.)Sovereign (the US) extinguished the title that the Indians had by granting it to the Defendant
C. Capture
I. Pierson v. Post: An action for trespass alone is an action for intentional infringement of possession. You have something that looks like trespass but is not quite like trespass.
(a.) Serious mistake: agreed on the issue on appeal—should have tried to frame the issue as bad conduct; should have framed/phrased the issue in terms of the other branch of trespass—terms of intentional interference of the plaintiff’s nonpossessory rights. This case is not compelled by precedent and this court reaches far for authorities. Framing the issue should never be left to the other side, should always be framed so that when it is accepted by the court, the conclusion will naturally support your side. Switch emphasis from plaintiff, and focus on the defendant’s conduct. Even the majority says it is unkind and uncourteous
(b.)Property in a wild animal is acquired by occupancy only: thus, finding, starting and pursuing of fox with dogs and hounds on uninhabited, unpossessed wasteland, does not give plaintiff property rights in fox against defendant who knowing that plaintiff was chasing the fox, to prevent the plaintiff from catching the fox, killed it and carried it off.
II. Keeble v. Hickeringill: The defendant is guilty of causing the disturbance of the plaintiff’s business and should be liable for such disturbance. If person violently or maliciously intervenes a person’s profession or occupation an action lies. If a person intervenes a persons profession by setting up a similar profession, this is lawful.
III. Ghen v. Rich:Ghen wishes to recover damages. Rich wants to be free from any liability over damages on cause of action based on conversion. Did the plaintiff, whose trade is to hunt and reap the profits from the bodies of wild fin-back whales and who shot and killed the whale in question with his marked lances, have title over the whale after it had surfaced four days later on a beach in Brewster, against the defendant, who purchased the whale at an auction from a third party without following the custom and usage of the whale-capturing trade common to those in the business of whale hunting in the Cape Cod area?W/o considering customs, Respondent would win because he was the one who occupied the animal first. Ellis and Rich are both on notice of the custom, but don’t adhere to it. Clearly custom governs here.
(a.) Custom doesn’t govern in Pierson v. Post: here, peoples’ livelihoods are at stake and hurts the general productivity of society/whaling industry
(b.)Pierson and Ghen are reconcilable because of their inherent differences: customs, circumstances, severity of damages, have in common: the winner kills animal and deprive it of its life. The customs and usages, and legal trade practice rely on the hunters’ ability to claim the wild animal, even after active pursuit has stopped.
(c.) Correlates with Keeble v. Hickeringill because have idea that legal businesses based on capturing should not be interfered with because it would take away the incentive to do business and would lower productivity
IV. Societal goals:
(a.) Pierson: killing foxes, get rid noxious beasts; Ghen: protect whaling industry to put more oil on the market; Keeble v. Hickeringill: malicious interference tort, maximize number of ducks on the market
(b.)Interested in the tort of malicious interference
(c.) Analogy from the capture cases appeal to broader issues of property law:
(1.)By analogy this whole law of capturing and reducing to property/use of animals has been adopted to gas law and oil law
(2.)Will also apply to land (Johnson): what acts w/ respect to land give rights to property rights aside from the sovereign and discovery and conquest
V. Creating a Treatise from these three cases:
(a.) Property rights in a wild animal can be obtained by occupancy only (Pierson v. Post) except when plaintiff is engaged in a business and an established business custom says otherwise (Ghen v. Rich) or defendant’s conduct is so bad (socially expensive, costs society too much) that plaintiff must win.
(b.)Always very nice if the court’s notion of societal good comports with what we might call a theory of right; the thing that will govern the result is what would best accomplish the result
D. Creation
I. Common ground in all these three cases
(a.) Competition: b/w land speculators, hunters, whale profits, ducks and same interest
(b.)INS-news, Cheney-textile design, Chanel-perfume
(c.) D hasn’t behaved well: INS: INS is endeavoring to reap where it has not sewn, Cheney: Court apologizes for what he is doing; Hand holds for the plaintiff who has suffered a grievance for which there should be a remedy
(d.)Intellectual property is ownership over an idea
(e.) Court is concerned w/ a theory of right, an element of morality/fairness
(f.) Need to give enough ownership to give incentive to produce for the public good, but after that, we want laws to create competition
(g.) Patents, like copyrights, are monopolies. TMs slightly different under commerce clause, similar monopoly effect. Purpose of all is to benefit the public good, but for TMs specifically: It is the public who needs protection in its expectations from certain symbols it expects from certain products.
II. Cheney Brothers v. Doris Silk Corp.: Does the plaintiff, the corporation and manufacture of cells with unique designs and patterns, which cannot copyright its designs, have property rights over its designs that it produces for profit against the defendant who has copied these designs without consent and sold them at a lower price for his profit? No. In the absence of some recognized right at the common law or under the statutes, a man’s property is limited to the chattels which embody his invention and others may imitate this at their pleasure
(a.) to avoid monopoly and encourage competition, the common law allows copying and imitation but there are exceptions ie. Persona/publicity
(b.)Legislation: legislation on patents, copyrights, and trademarks
(1.)Patents: granted for novel, useful, and nonobvious processes or products
(A.) Once issued, patents last for a period of twenty years but patents are not renewable
(2.)Copyrights: protect the expression of ideas—not ideas themselves; today anything expressive can be copyrighted. The copyright office in Cheney brothers did not accept fabric design registrations because cloth designs were considered a matter of the utility or functionality and not a mode of expression
(3.)Trademarks: words and symbols indicating the source of a product or service; and eight to consumers to verify that what they’re buying is the product they have come to light or trust; a rise out of the use of the market in commercial activity and are lost when they are abandoned
III. International News Service v. Associated Press: By gathering and distributing news through use of its own resources of labor, money, skill, enterprise, and organization, the complainant has established quasi property rights over its valuable information and therefore the confidentiality of its product must be upheld against its competitor’s practices of bribing and inducing complainant’s employees to release the information to them, and copying news from bulletin boards and early edition’s of complainant’s newspapers. The peculiar value of news is in the spreading of it while it is fresh. Because news information gathering is produced at the cost of enterprise, organization, skill, labor, and money, the news must be regarded as quasi property
IV. Virtual works, Inc. v. Volkswagen of America, Inc: Does the plaintiff, a famous automobile corporation whose trademark name is confusingly similar with the domain name in controversy, have rights over the domain name vw.net under the 1999 anticyberaquatting act, against the defendant, virtual works, who shares the same acronym and two registered under the domain name first although it had other alternatives available for it and knew that VW was associated with the plaintiffs TM? Ratio decidendi: there are circumstantial indirect evidence establishing bad faith because 1) the famousness of the VW mark 2) the similarity of the vw.net to the VW mark 3) the admission that virtual works never did business as VW nor identified itself as such 4) the availability of other domain names to virtual works 4) the statements Anderson made at registration leaving open the possibility of one day selling the site to Volkswagen for a lot of money; There was a dual purpose in registering under the domain name
(a.) Cybersquatters-people who register domain names based on famous trademarks prior to registration by the actual trademark owners, hoping to hold up the owners later
(b.)Parasites-people register domain names similar to a well known trademarks, then use them in ways that tarnished the mark’s image – save by pr
ot include the right to bar access to governmental services available to migrant workers and hence there was no trespass. A man’s right to his real property is not absolute – one should so use his property as to not injure the rights of others. No damage to plaintiff, governmental services of necessity (for legal and health services) for a weak party/group, and have no other place to receive these services (live on the land)
E. Acquisition by Find
I. Policies:
(a.) Protect the interests of the true owner: Returning abandoned things to the true owner of the property
(b.)Protect the interests of the prior possessor
(c.) Reward honesty, in particular, the honesty of a finder and discourage bad conduct
(d.)Honor the legitimate expectations of all the parties including finders and landowners
(e.) We want things of value in productive use and protecting the finder condones such use
II. Priority of Rights in Property
(a.) True Owner>Possessor>Subsequent Possessor
(1.)The finder must acquire physical control and have intent to assume dominion over it (like capture)
III. Armory v. Delamirie: A chimney sweeper’s boy who found a jewel; master who offered to buy the jewel from the plaintiff. Jeweler refuses to give back jewel. Holding: The finder of the jewel may maintain trover and has property rights over all except for the actual owner. The value of the jewel was found as what it was assessed as.
(a.) Trover is a common law action for money damages resulting from the defendant’s conversion to his own use of a chattel owned or possessed by the plaintiff. The plaintiff waives his right to obtain the worth of the chattel and insists that the defendant be subjected a forced purchase of the chattel from him. If the defendant loses, he must pay money damages to the plaintiff.
(1.)Recovers the value of the P’s chattel that D converted; Forces D to purchase the chattel instead of return it
IV. Hannah v. Peel: Hannah, a lance corporal, stationed at the r’s house found abandoned brooch along the window sill and turned it into the police. r, L of the house, received the brooch from the police after the proper owner was not found and sold the brooch. Holding: P wins. A man possesses everything under his land unless the unattached thing is found by someone else.
(a.) Applied to goals: 1) Protect interest of true owner, but we don’t know who that is, so we can eliminate that issue. 4) Productive use 2) The landowner’s legitimate expectations is that everything on his property is his whether he is aware of it or not; 3) The finder’s legitimate expectations is that he would be able to acquire ownership of what he found if the true owner is not found 5) want to promote honesty
(b.)Homeowner has not made his home his personal space: usually owns what is found in his own home b/c he has an intent to exclude everyone and to admit persons for only specific limited purposes
V. Popov v. Hayashi: Did the plaintiff, who first intercepted the momentum of the baseball that was intentionally abandoned acquire property rights over the baseball although he could not completely control and possess the ball and his ability to do so is unknown because of the interference of the aggressive fans who immediately attacked Mr. Popov thereafter against the defendant who was able to nonviolently gain complete control over the ball once the mob had intercepted Mr. Popov’s interception. Holding: Equitable division.
(a.) Both men have a superior claim to the ball against all the world and neither can present a superior argument as against the other since their legal claims are of equal quality and they are of equal entitlement to the baseball based on equitable division: The concept of equitable division has its roots in ancient Roman law that comports with the idea of fairness and equality, and was applied to Keron v. Cashman where 5 boys found a sack of valuable belongings, equally possessed it for periods, and had no intent to possess until after it was opened and the value was known to all.
(b.)Conversion is the wrongful exercise of dominion over the personal property of another. There must be actual interference with the plaintiff’s dominion.
McAvoy v. Medina: Plaintiff, a client of the defendant’s barbershop who found a pocketbook. Owner of
