Today in class we will be talking about Ghen v. Rich and Keeble v. Hickeringill, through the lens of economic efficiency and fairness.  We will use this resource about the Coase Theorem in class (courtesy of Professor Frank Buckley at George Mason Law).

Today’s lecture notes are here. Today’s live chat is here.

Announcement: Today at 5:00 p.m. in the Emilie Slohm Dining Room on the 6th Floor the Library, I will be speaking at a Federalist Society event along with my former Property Professor, Ilya Somin from George Mason University School of Law. We will be talking about Kelo v. City of New London and eminent domain–the power of the government to take private property. You will study this case in Property II and probably in Constitutional Law, and I will likely bring it up at some point in class. I would encourage you to attend if you can. Plus, there will be free Torchy’s Tacos!

One of your STCL classmates made this amusing flyer:

 

Ghen v. Rich.

Here is the harvesting of a finback whale.

Fin whales are on average about 90 feet long, and can weigh over 70 tons. By point of comparison, an African elephant weighs roughly 8 tons.

 

This is a bomb lance harpoon.

And a patent diagram of an 1878 bomb lance:

Another patent diagram from 1879.

 

More pics of bomb lances. It was basically a harpoon with a rocket attached to it.

This is a bomb lance gun.

Here is a drawing from 1897 showing the firing of a bomb lance (Frank T. Bullen, The Cruise of the Cachalot (1897)

 

This is what a captured whale looks like:

Keeble v. Hickeringill

Here is Edmund Hickeringill (courtesy of the British Musuem)–doesn’t he just look like a jerk!?

This is Lord Chief Justice John Holt who was the Lord Chief Justice of England, the author of the opinion in Keeble v. Hickeringill.

Here is a plan for the duck decoy.

The ducks get caught in these nets over the pipes.

 

Here is a dutch video showing the ducks getting cut (fast forward to about 1:05)

I suspect many of you have tried this kind of duck hunting.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1NyIsZXeqU]

Images courtesy of dukeminier-property.com and Wikipedia.