In the United States of America, one among various areas of law is property law. As the name suggests, it deals with ownership of various forms of real or tangible property. There are other forms of property as well for intellectual property, however, in this article we will focus on discussing on personal property such as land etc., Property can be exchanged through contract law, and if property is violated, one could sue under tort law to protect it. In the United States this particular area of law is governed at state, federal as well as local level, for example: patent, zoning, copyright and tenancy. The law in general stems from common law and has been comprehensively altered and adapted by various other statutes. For example: The Restatements on Property give you a summary on the same regarding few aspects of property law in the United States. “In American jurisprudence, the Restatements of the Law are a set of treatises on legal subjects that seek to inform judges and lawyers about general principles of common law. There are now four series of Restatements, all published by the American Law Institute, an organization of judges, legal academics, and practitioners founded in 1923.” Restatements are rare in common law jurisdictions outside of the United States.
DEFINITION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS
There are two main views on the right to property in the United States, the traditional view and the bundle of rights view. The traditionalists believe that there is a core, inherent meaning in the concept of property, while the bundle of rights view states that the property owner only has bundle of permissible uses over the property. The two views exist on a spectrum and the difference may be a matter of focus and emphasis.
William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, wrote that the essential core of property is the right to exclude. That is, the owner of property must be able to exclude others from the thing in question, even though the right to exclude is subject to limitations. By implication, the owner can use the thing, unless another restriction, such as zoning law, prevents it. Other traditionalists argue that three main rights define property: the right to exclusion, use and transfer.
ACQUISITION OF PROPERTY
Under American law, the first possessor of a property generally acquires the property. The first possessor is the first person who intends to assert control over the object and in fact exercises significant control over the object. A seminal case on first possession is Pierson v. Post. The majority of the court cited the Justinian Code and various jurists, before concluding that possession required certain control. With wild animals, the majority held, only one who mortally wound or seize the animal can acquire possession, merely giving chase is not sufficient. The dissenting opinion would require only a reasonable prospect of capture, close pursuit in the case would satisfy the rule. The dissent cited jurists as well as the custom among hunters.
CASE SUMMARY IS EXPLAINED BELOW:
Brief Fact Summary.
One man chased and pursued a fox, but another man killed it and carried it away. A dispute as to who had possession of the fox arose.
Synopsis of Rule of Law.
Mere pursuit of an animal does not give one a legal right to it.
Facts.
Post and his dogs hunted, chased and pursued a fox along the beach. Pierson was aware of the chase, and he killed the fox and carried it off. Post claimed a legal right to possession of the animal, and the lower court agreed with him
Issue.
Does a person obtain possession of a wild animal by chasing it?
Held.
No. Judgment reversed.
Merely finding and chasing a wild animal does not give a person possession. Even merely wounding the animal will not give right to possession. The animal must be captured or killed in order to constitute possession.
Dissent.
When a person spends his day hunting a wild animal and comes close to reasonably capturing him, another person should not be allowed to claim possession of that animal.
Estates and future interests
Land ownership in American law is highly complex, based on feudal categories inherited from English law. Although feudalism is no longer relevant in the modern United States, the law in most states have not been simplified to reflect modern circumstances. However, new types of land ownership is generally disallowed, under the numerus clausus principle, unless they are introduced by legislation.
In most states, full ownership of land is known as fee simple, fee simple absolute, or fee. Fee simple refers to a present interest in the land, which continues indefinitely into the future. One other type of ownership is the defeasible fee, which is like fee simple, except that it can end upon some event occurring. The defeasible fee is sometimes seen with property donated to charity for a specific use, where the grantor specifies that the ownership may end if the property is no longer used in a certain way.
Another type of present interest is the life estate, by which the grantor gives the life tenant full rights during the life tenant’s life. But after his death, the estate will either go back to the grantor (known as a reversion) or to another person (known as a remainder). Remainders can be vested or conditional, based on conditions of the remainder. Remainders are “vested” when the condition of the remainder is fulfilled, even if the possession has not yet been transferred. For example, in a grant “to A for life, then to B if he graduates high school by age 18”, the remainder to B vests when B graduates high school by age 18, although the possession will not transfer until A dies. There is also the executory interest, which is a future interest that cuts off a preceding interest when a condition is met.
The focus on vesting is important in many states because contingent remainders (and certain other future interests) are invalidated if they might vest after the period defined by the Rule Against Perpetuities (RAP). The Rule Against Perpetuities traditionally requires an interest to vest “if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest.” Any future interest not conforming to the Rule Against Perpetuities is traditionally invalid. Many states have reformed the RAP with “wait-and-see statutes” or abolished it all together.
