I. Introduction to Some Fundamentals
A. Property
1. Definition: It’s the recognized relationship of a person among persons with respect to a thing.
2. Classification:
1) Personal Property: if the thing is movable.
a. Tangible personable property: includes property of a physical nature. You can see it and touch it.
b. Intangible personal property: cannot be touched or seen but has value: stock in corporations, bonds, patents, copyrights
2) Real Property: land and improvements attached to the land.
B. Possession: is the controlling or holding of personal property, with or without a claim of ownership. It has two elements:
1) an intent to possess on the part of the possessor, and
2) his actual controlling or holding of the property.
a. Exception: Constructive Possession
C. Title: means ownership. Not necessarily possession: a person can be deemed to have title to property even though she does not have actual possession of the property.
D. Relativity of Title: means that a person can have a relatively better title or right to possession than another, while simultaneously having a right inferior to yet another person.
II. First Possession
1. Acquisition of Property by Discovery:
1) First in Time, First in Right: upon discovery of this continent, the rule was first in time, first in right. The first country to discover the land had the right on the property among the European nations.
2) Chain of Title: it refers to the successive transfer of the title of a property.
3) Labor theory: was developed by John Lock to justify that the first possessor was entitled to the property because the first possessor used his labor and worked the land thereby making it his property.
2. Acquisition by Capture – Wild Animals
1) General Rule: Capture (or actual possession) of the wild animal is required. Mere chasing, although in hot pursuit, does not give the pursuer a right to possession against the capture.
2) Rationale: competition to capture more foxes (to destroy them) or ducks (to bring more food); rewarding capture instead of pursuit is easier rule;
3) Exceptions
a) Mortal wounding + pursuit: the hunter acquires a right to possession. In a sense, a mortal wounding is a constructive control of the animal because if the animal has been mortally wounded or trapped so that capture is virtually ce
that the interference was unlawful thereby depriving both the P and D from capturing the ducks. Social Policy: To provide more foods.
e) Escaped Wild Animals:is deemed to have returned to nature and once more belongs to no one.
Exceptions:
a) if the animal is not native to the area such that a reasonable person would know that the animal belonged to someone else.
b) if the animal has an animus revertendi (tendency to return), then it’s not just ferae naturae, but someone’s property.
f) More rules of capture and wild animals
a. Trespasser who captures a wild animal on the land of another has no rights to the animal as against the landowner, even though the landowner never had actual physical possession or control. The landowner had “constructive” possession of the animal.
Oil and gas that has fugitive character –migrate to the land of another: treat them as wild animals. Once they escape and go into other land, the title of the former owner is gone.
