Property Law Consolidated Reference Flashcards

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering Property Law topics including Easements, Nuisance, Takings, Adverse Possession, Finding, Initial Acquisition, Gifts, and Future Interests based on the lecture notes.

Dominant Estate

The parcel or holder that benefits from an easement.

Servient Estate

The parcel that is burdened by an easement.

Easement

A nonpossessory interest that benefits a dominant estate or holder and burdens a servient estate.

Appurtenant vs. In Gross

A comparison of easements based on whether the benefit is attached to land (appurtenant) or to a person (in gross).

Prescriptive Easement

An easement arising from open, notorious, adverse, and continuous use for the statutory period, usually creating a use right rather than full title.

Willard v. First Church of Christ, Scientist

A case that rejects the old common-law bar on reserving an easement to a third party, allowing such reservations based on the grantor's intent.

Express Easement

An easement created by a written grant or reservation that identifies the burdened land, the benefited interest, and authorized use.

Easement by Necessity

An easement that arise on severance when commonly owned land leaves a parcel landlocked or unusable without access.

Easement by Prior Use

An implied easement arising on severance when a formerly unified parcel had an apparent, continuous, preexisting use that is reasonably necessary.

Easement by Estoppel

Also known as an irrevocable license, it arises when a landowner permits use under circumstances that foreseeably induce substantial reliance.

Brown v. Voss

A case illustrating that an easement appurtenant created for one dominant parcel does not automatically expand to benefit an additional non-dominant parcel.

Brandt

A case highlighting that some railroad rights of way are easements that terminate upon abandonment rather than leaving a reversionary interest in the government.

Negative Easements

Historically narrow categories limited to light, air, support, and stream flow.

Private Nuisance

A substantial and unreasonable nontrespassory interference with another's use and enjoyment of land.

Public Nuisance

Interference with rights common to the public; private plaintiffs ordinarily require a special injury distinct from the public to maintain the action.

Spur Industries, Inc. v. Del E. Webb Development Co.

A case involving public nuisance where a developer who "brought people to the nuisance" had to indemnify the defendant for costs of moving or shutting down.

Unreasonableness Factors (Nuisance)

Assessment turns on gravity of harm, avoidability, locality suitability, and competing utility of the activity.

Boomer v. Atlantic Cement Co.

A case allowing a nuisance to continue upon payment of permanent damages instead of an injunction when shutting down is dramatically costly.

Estancias Dallas Corp. v. Schultz

A case where a court may enjoin a nuisance when hardship to neighbors and residential settings justify a property-rule remedy despite the defendant's costs.

Property Rule vs. Liability Rule

A distinction by Calabresi and Melamed explaining remedies; property rules usually imply injunctions while liability rules imply court-set damages.

Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City

Ad hoc balancing for regulatory takings focused on economic impact, investment-backed expectations, and the character of the government action.

Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council

A per se rule for regulatory takings when a regulation deprives land of all economically beneficial use, subject to background principles.

Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp.

A per se taking rule for government-authorized permanent physical occupations, regardless of the size or economic impact.

Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (Penn Coal)

Establishes the foundational idea that regulation can become a taking if it goes "too far."

Kelo v. City of New London

Broadly reads the federal public-use requirement to include public purposes such as redevelopment.

Just Compensation

Ordinarily measured as the fair market value of what is taken, excluding subjective or idiosyncratic attachment.

Exactions

Government-imposed permit conditions that must satisfy an essential nexus (Nollan) and rough proportionality (Dolan).

Right to Exclude

Considered the central property entitlement in physical-takings and exactions cases.

Adverse Possession

Acquisition of title through hostile, actual, open and notorious, exclusive, and continuous possession for the statutory period.

Tacking

The combination of successive possessors' periods of use to satisfy the statutory period for adverse possession.

Open and Notorious

Possession visible enough that a reasonable owner would have notice of the claimant acting like an owner.

Hostility

Possession without the true owner's permission; mental state requirements vary by state (good faith versus objective).

Lost vs. Mislaid vs. Abandoned Property

Classification determining priority: lost property favors the finder; mislaid property favors the premises owner as bailee; abandoned property returns to first possession.

Relativity of Title (Armory v. Delamirie)

The principle that a finder has a possessory title good against everyone except the true owner.

Hannah v. Peel

A case giving the finder priority over a landowner when the item is lost and the landowner never physically possessed the premises.

First Possession

The baseline rule for allocating previously unowned resources based on the legal level of control or possession achieved.

Pierson v. Post

The rule that wild animal capture requires actual bodily seizure, mortal wounding with continued pursuit, or certain control; pursuit alone is insufficient.

Keeble v. Hickeringill

The principle that malicious interference with a person's lawful, profit-seeking effort to capture wild animals is actionable.

Discovery Doctrine (Johnson v. M'Intosh)

A rule that gave European sovereigns the exclusive right to acquire land from Indigenous nations, leaving the latter with occupancy but not alienable title.

Ghen v. Rich

A case recognizing title based on settled industry custom instead of immediate physical possession.

Inter Vivos Gift

A valid gift requires present donative intent, delivery (actual, constructive, or symbolic), and acceptance.

Gift Causa Mortis

A gift made in contemplation of imminent death; it is revocable if the donor survives the peril.

Gruen v. Gruen

A case holding that a donor can make a present gift of title while retaining a life estate in possession.

Life Estate

An estate that gives present possession for a measuring life, subject to the doctrine of waste.

Rule Against Perpetuities (RAP)

A test of whether future interests must vest within $21$ years after a life in being at creation, or within a $90$-year wait-and-see period.

Fee Simple Absolute

The modern default estate; it exists unless the grant language clearly creates a smaller or defeasible estate.

Fee Simple Determinable (FSD)

An estate using durational language (e.g., "until") that ends automatically and leaves a possibility of reverter in the grantor.

Fee Simple Subject to Condition Subsequent (FSSCS)

An estate using conditional language (e.g., "but if") that requires the grantor to exercise a right of entry to terminate possession.

Vested Remainder

A future interest given to an ascertained taker not subject to a condition precedent other than the natural end of the prior estate.

Contingent Remainder

A remainder where the taker is unascertained or must satisfy a condition precedent before entitlement to possession.

Executory Interest

A future interest in a transferee that divests another interest or follows a condition in a way that prevents possession at the natural end of a prior estate.