Property I Comprehensive Final Exam Study Guide

Vocabulary practice flashcards defining core terms, legal standards, and frameworks from the Property I Comprehensive Final Exam Study Guide.

Classical Blackstonian View

A conception of property defining it as 'that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe,' emphasizing absolute individual control over physical objects.

"Bundle of Sticks" Model

The contemporary model conceptualizing property not as a single object, but as a collection of distinct legal relations and rights enforceable against others, including the rights to exclude, possess, use and enjoy, alienate/transfer, encumber, and destroy.

Ad Coelum Doctrine

The historical doctrine that vertical ownership of land extends 'up to the sky and down to the depths' (Cujus est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos). Modern law limits airspace ownership to what the landowner can reasonably occupy or use.

Trespass (Common Law)

An unprivileged, intentional physical intrusion on property possessed by another. The intent requirement is satisfied simply by the volitional act of entering; good-faith mistake is no defense.

Incomplete Privilege (Private Necessity)

A privilege allowing an actor to intrude upon another's property to prevent imminent, greater harm to life or property, shielding the actor from criminal liability and injunctions, while leaving them liable for actual physical damage caused.

Four-Element Necessity Defense

The criminal/civil defense standard established in Commonwealth v. Magadini requiring: (1) clear and imminent danger; (2) reasonable expectation that the action will directly abate the danger; (3) no effective, legal alternative; and (4) lack of legislative preclusion.

Rule of Capture (Ferae Naturae)

The rule that property rights in wild animals vest only through actual physical custody, trapping, netting, or mortally wounding while maintaining continuous pursuit, rather than mere pursuit.

Gray's Rule

The rule governing hit or abandoned baseballs providing that ownership vests only upon retaining complete control of the ball after its momentum ceases.

Pre-Possessory Interest

A qualified legal interest recognized in Popov v. Hayashi where an actor undertakes significant but incomplete steps to achieve possession of abandoned property and is interrupted by unlawful physical acts of a third party.

Correlative Rights Limitation

A limitation on the Rule of Capture in oil and gas providing that the rule does not shield operations that are negligent, wasteful, or malicious and cause damage to a shared underground reservoir.

Relativity of Title

The property principle that possession confers superior title against all subsequent possessors, though title remains inferior to prior possessors and the true owner.

Lost Property

Property that is accidentally and involuntarily separated from the owner without their knowledge, typically found dropped on the floor, ground, or a public area. The finder prevails over all except the true owner, subject to specific exceptions.

Mislaid Property

Property intentionally placed in a specific spot by the owner who subsequently forgets to retrieve it. Custody is awarded to the owner of the locus in quo to hold for the true owner; the finder receives no title.

Abandoned Property

Property voluntarily relinquished by the owner with the clear intent to surrender both title and possession. The finder acquires absolute fee simple title against all parties, including the former owner.

Embedded Property / Treasure Trove

Property buried or embedded in the soil (or ancient hidden gold/coin). At common law and modernly, title to embedded items is awarded to the owner of the locus in quo.

Void Title Rule

The common law rule providing that a thief acquires no title and therefore cannot pass good title to anyone, including a Bona Fide Purchaser for Value (BFP), allowing the true owner to recover the chattel.

Entrustment Rule (UCC § 2-403(2))

A statutory rule empowering a merchant dealing in goods of a particular kind to transfer all rights of an entruster to a buyer in the ordinary course of business when goods are entrusted to that merchant.

Discovery Rule

A tolling rule for statutes of limitations in personal property replevin actions where the limitations clock begins running only when the true owner knows, or through reasonable diligence should have known, the identity of the possessor.

Demand-and-Refusal Rule

The New York statute of limitations rule providing that against a good-faith purchaser of stolen personal property, the limitations period does not begin until the true owner demands the property's return and the possessor refuses.

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)

A federal statute (25 U.S.C. §§ 3001–3013) requiring federally funded institutions to inventory and repatriate Native American human remains, funerary objects, and sacred items to lineal descendants or culturally affiliated tribes.

Restoration Costs Remedy (Trespass)

A damages measure awarded for trespass exceeding diminution in market value when the property owner has personal, non-commercial reasons for restoring the land (such as ornamental trees) and the costs are reasonable.

Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

A federal statute (42 U.S.C. § 2000a) prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation affecting interstate commerce, with remedies strictly limited to injunctive relief and attorney's fees.

Civil Rights Act of 1866 (42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 & 1982)

Federal post-Civil War statutes prohibiting racial discrimination in making/enforcing contracts (§ 1981) and purchasing, leasing, or holding real and personal property (§ 1982), permitting awards of compensatory and punitive damages.

Doctrine of Discovery

The principle established in Johnson v. M'Intosh that European discovering nations acquired ultimate fee title to discovered lands and the exclusive sovereign power to extinguish Indigenous occupancy rights by purchase or conquest.

Indian Right of Occupancy

The recognized, usufructuary right of Indigenous tribes to occupy ancestral lands, which lacks the legal power to convey fee simple title to private individuals without federal sovereign approval.

Trade and Intercourse Act (1790)

A federal statute (25 U.S.C. § 177) declaring that no purchase, grant, lease, or other conveyance of lands from any Indian nation or tribe is valid unless made pursuant to a federal treaty or convention.

Adverse Possession (O-C-E-A-N)

A doctrine transferring title to real property to a possessor whose occupation is Open and notorious, Continuous, Exclusive, Actual, and Non-permissive (hostile) for the full statutory period, proven by clear and convincing evidence.

Tacking

The doctrine permitting successive adverse possessors to join their possession periods together to satisfy the statutory duration requirement, provided there is privity of estate between them.

Color of Title

Entry onto real property under a written instrument (such as a deed or will) that is defective, which confers constructive adverse possession over the entirety of the parcel described upon actual possession of a portion.

Wild & Woodlands Doctrine

A rule governing adverse possession of undeveloped forest or wild land requiring prominent physical acts (such as fences, structures, or commercial activities) to establish sufficient open and notorious notice to the owner.

Prescriptive Easement

A non-possessory servitude acquired through open, notorious, continuous, and adverse (non-permissive) use under a claim of right for the statutory period; unlike adverse possession, exclusivity is not required.

Private Nuisance

A substantial and unreasonable non-trespassory interference with the private use and enjoyment of land, evaluated by balancing the gravity of harm against the utility of the conduct.

Purchased Injunction (Rule 4)

A nuisance remedy within the Calabresi and Melamed framework where the court enjoins the defendant's ongoing nuisance, but requires the plaintiff to indemnify the defendant for reasonable relocation or abatement costs.

Euclidean Zoning

A cumulative system of public land-use control dividing a municipality into geographic districts that regulate allowed uses and building bulk, held constitutional unless clearly arbitrary, unreasonable, and lacking substantial relation to public welfare.

Pre-Existing Nonconforming Use

A lawful land use in existence prior to the enactment of a zoning ordinance that is permitted to continue operating, but cannot be expanded, qualitatively altered, or resumed after abandonment.

Vested Rights

A zoning doctrine protecting a developer from subsequent ordinance changes only after the issuance of a valid building permit and substantial physical construction or expenditures in good-faith reliance.

Undue Hardship Test

The standard required to obtain a zoning variance showing: (1) the land cannot yield a reasonable return without the variance; (2) the hardship is unique to the parcel and not self-created; and (3) the relief will not alter the neighborhood's essential character.

Spot Zoning

The impermissible rezoning of a single small parcel of land for private benefit that is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan and detrimental to surrounding properties.

Mount Laurel Doctrine

A state constitutional rule requiring developing municipalities to provide a realistic opportunity for the construction of their regional fair share of low- and moderate-income housing, prohibiting exclusionary fiscal zoning.

Appurtenant Easement

An easement created to benefit a specific dominant parcel of land that runs with the land automatically upon transfer, distinguished from an easement in gross, which benefits a person or entity directly.

Easement Implied from Prior Use

An easement implied by law requiring: (1) common ownership of dominant and servient parcels prior to severance; (2) continuous, apparent quasi-easement use prior to severance; and (3) reasonable necessity for enjoyment.

Easement Implied by Necessity

An easement arising when unified land is severed, strictly landlocking one of the parcels without any legal access route, enduring for as long as the absolute necessity exists.

Real Covenant

A promise respecting the use of land that runs with the land at law to bind or benefit successors, enforceable primarily through money damages and requiring privity of estate.

Equitable Servitude

A covenant respecting land use that is enforceable in equity through an injunction or specific performance, binding successors who took with notice without requiring horizontal or vertical privity.

Touch and Concern

The requirement that a covenant directly affect the physical use, condition, or economic value of the burdened and benefited estates, rather than constituting a purely personal collateral obligation.

Strict Vertical Privity

The running-at-law requirement that a successor hold the exact same durational estate as the original contracting party, necessary for the burden of a real covenant to run.

Implied Reciprocal Negative Servitude

An equitable doctrine implying restrictions across all lots within a common development scheme where a developer sells with an intent to restrict the subdivision and buyers have actual, record, or inquiry notice.

Changed Conditions Doctrine

An equitable defense barring enforcement of a servitude when radical, pervasive external neighborhood changes defeat the original purpose of the covenant, rendering enforcement useless.

Joint Tenancy (JT)

A concurrent estate characterized by the right of survivorship and requiring the four unities of Time, Title, Interest, and Possession at creation, which severs into a tenancy in common upon unilateral conveyance.

Tenancy by the Entirety (TBE)

A form of concurrent ownership reserved exclusively for married couples requiring the four unities plus marriage, featuring an indestructible right of survivorship immune from unilateral conveyance or individual creditors in most states.

Ouster

An explicit, wrongful act by a co-tenant in physical possession that excludes, bars, or denies the right of entry to other co-tenants, triggering an obligation to pay rent and starting the adverse possession clock.

Riparian Doctrine

The eastern surface water doctrine allocating water rights exclusively to owners of land physically abutting a natural watercourse, modernly governed by the Reasonable Use rule.

Prior Appropriation Doctrine

The western water law doctrine allocating water rights based on priority of beneficial diversion independent of land ownership, summarized as 'first in time, first in right' and subject to forfeiture for non-use.

Public Trust Doctrine

The principle that sovereign states hold title to the beds beneath navigable waters in trust for the public to preserve access for navigation, commerce, fishing, and recreation.