PropertyProf Blog

Serkin on Insurance for Local Governments and Takings Claims

Christopher Serkin (Vanderbilt) has posted Insuring Takings Claims (Northwestern University Law Review) on SSRN. Here's the abstract:

Local governments typically insure themselves against all kinds of losses, from property damage to legal liability. For small- and medium-sized governments, this usually means purchasing insurance from private insurers or participating in municipal risk pools. Insurance for regulatory takings claims, however, is generally unavailable. This previously unnoticed gap in municipal insurance coverage could lead risk averse local governments to underregulate and underenforce existing regulations where property owners threaten to bring takings claims. This seemingly technical observation turns out to have profound implications for theoretical accounts of the Takings Clause that focus on government regulatory incentives. This Article explores the impact of insurance on land use regulations. In the process, it reveals important insights about public insurance more generally and offers a novel explanation for the burgeoning land use innovation in cities compared to the relative stagnation of land use in the suburbs. It concludes by suggesting new ways for promoting local land use regulations that risk generating takings claims.

CFP: Hawaii Law Review Sharing Economy Symposium

This just in from our friends at the University of Hawai'i William S. Richardson School of Law:

Save the Date!  The Volume 39 Symposium will take place on Friday, February 17, 2016. One of our panels will focus on the topic of regulation in the context of the home sharing economy. Those wishing to submit articles for the symposium on topics intersecting property law and the sharing economy can get more info here. The Law Review will be accepting submissions through February 17, 2017, for publication in April/May. You can also contact the co-editor-in-chief of the Law Review, Ross Uehara-Tilton, by clicking here.

ABA RPTE Professors' Corner: How Genetics Might Affect Real Property Rights

Professors’ Corner

 

A FREE monthly webinar featuring a panel of law professors, 

addressing topics of interest to practitioners of real estate and trusts/estates

 

Members of the AALS Real Estate Transactions Section are welcome to register and participate!

 

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

12:30 p.m. Eastern/11:30 a.m. Central/9:30 a.m. Pacific

 

How Genetics Might Affect Real Property Rights

 

Speakers:

 

·        Mark A. Rothstein, Herbert F. Boehl Chair of Law and Medicine, University of Louisville School of Medicine

·        Laura Rothstein, Professor of Law and Distinguished University Scholar, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville

 

Moderator:

 

·        Wilson Freyermuth, John D. Lawson Professor and Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Missouri School of Law

 

Because genomic information is becoming more common in health records, individuals and entities with an economic interest in the future health status of individuals will be tempted to use this information to predict the health risks of individuals entering into real property transactions. The list of potential users of this information includes mortgage lenders and insurers, real estate sellers, senior living centers, and retirement communities. The law has yet to regulate this aspect of genetic information and its use.    

 

Register for this FREE webinar at http://ambar.org/ProfessorsCorner

 

Sponsored by the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section

Legal Education and Uniform Laws Group

Call for Presentation and Panel Proposals for Arizona State University's Third Annual Sustainability Conference of American Legal Educators

Arizona State University has issued a call for presentations and panels for its Third Annual Sustainability Conference of American Legal Educators on May 12, 2017. Carol Rose will be this year's keynote speaker. ASU will pay up to $500 lodging/transportation reimbursement for all presenters. Proposal details here.

In addition, associated with the conference is the Morrison Prize Contest, which awards $10,000 for "the most impactful sustainability-related legal academic paper published in North America during the previous year." NOTE: the deadline for the Morrison Contest is Dec. 15, but you need only submit five offprints of your previously published work.

Thanks to Troy Rule for sharing information about the conference.

 

Yael Lifshitz on Rethinking Original Ownership

Yael Lifshitz has posted Rethinking Original Ownership, forthcoming in the University of Toronto Law Journal. This work is related to Yael's doctoral dissertation in New York University's JSD Program. Here is the abstract:  

At the genesis of property, an initial allocation of entitlements takes place. Existing property scholarship identifies two main rules for assigning original ownership – ‘first possession’ and ‘accession’ – and positions them one against another. This article challenges the conventional binary division and the dominance of either first possession or accession as ‘pure’ allocation principles, arguing instead that the ownership of new resources is often allocated through hybrid mechanisms that combine the two rules. This article offers an analysis of hybrid rules and their utility through a novel and contemporary case study of the ongoing allocation of property in wind energy.