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Instructions: You are an associate at a law firm. Your lazy partner, who is quite short on time, asks you to prepare a memorandum of no more than 500 words addressing a situation affecting a client. You are in a jurisdiction that, for the most part, adopts the rules of the Restatement (First) of Property, but is gradually moving towards the Restatement (Third) of Property. The jurisdiction has a “Notice” recording statute. The period required for adverse possession is ten years with color of title, and twenty years without color of title .

Here are all the facts. If you draw any inferences beyond these facts, please explain why you drew those inferences.

On January 1, 2011, your client Aladdin purchased Blackacre from Oliver with a general warranty deed for $100,000. Oliver told Aladdin that he owned the land in fee simple, and that there were no encumbrances on the title.

Aladdin, who was otherwise involved in a bitter dispute with his girlfriend Jasmine (she acted like such a Princess!), delayed recording until January 1, 2012.

Unbeknownst to Aladdin, Oliver also sold Blackacre to Bambi for $50,000 on June 1, 2011. Oliver gave Bambi a quit-claim deed, though Oliver never signed it. Bambi recorded the same day, on June 1, 2011. However, the clerk who recorded the deed accidentally wrote “Greyacre” instead of “Blackacre.” Bambi knew nothing about the sale of Blackacre to Aladdin.

Bambi did not enter the property right away, as she was grieving the tragic death of her mother.

On January 2, 2012, Aladdin finally enters Blackacre, and decides to open the forest, which is extremely over-populated with deer, to hunters for a fee. Within 24 hours, Aladdin sells out hunting passes for the year for $20,000.

Gaston, a renowned hunter, enters the land, fires his gun, and kills a deer.

Captain Hook, who owns Whiteacre, which is adjacent to Blackacre, is startled by the gunshot, and comes running over and yells at Aladdin, telling him hunting is not allowed on the land. The Captain is very sensitive to sound.

The Captain says, “Look around at every other plot of land in the area. There is no hunting allowed anywhere in the county!” Aladdin said he didn’t even notice.

Aladdin told the Captain that his land was so over-populated by deer, who were eating all of his crops, that he needed to do something to reduce the number of deer. Aladdin said “this was the only way I could save my land!”

The Captain tells Aladdin that when he sold Blackacre to Donald Duck thirty years ago, the Captain added an easement on the deed, stating that hunting would not be allowed on Blackacre.

Aladdin tells the Captain that he “purchased Blackacre in fee simple from Oliver, not Donald Duck.” Aladdin had no clue who Donald Duck was. The Captain looks confused, and said that he had seen Oliver on the land occasionally over the last 5 years, and before that Eeyore had lived on the land continuously for six years. Oliver claimed he acquired a deed from Eeyore, but it was never recorded. Eeyore obtained a deed to the land from a sheriff’s sale. Eeyore never recorded his deed. However, years later–after Oliver acquired title from Eeyore and entered the land–a court determined that the the sheriff’s sale was based on an invalid foreclosure. Oliver had no notice that the foreclosure sale was invalid. The Captain said he did not mind that Eeyore and Oliver were on the land, as they were quiet. However, the Captain said that Donald Duck was the lawful owner. Aladdin said he had never even heard of Donald Duck.

Shortly thereafter, Bambi, still traumatized from the death of her mother, enters Blackacre, and discovers to her absolute shock and horror, that Aladdin is allowing deer-hunters onto the land.

The Captain filed suit to enjoin hunting on Blackacre, and claimed that the noise from the gunshots constitute a nuisance, seeking $5,000 in damages. Bambi filed an action to quiet title, and to oust Aladdin from Blackacre.

What are Aladdin’s best defenses against the suits brought by Captain Hook and Bambi? What actions may exist against Oliver? What should Aladdin do (and no, Genie can’t help)?

Read this.

On the other hand, it seems that technocratic hubris about the capacity of government to manage complexity and arrange the world just right is turning out not to work well either. The technical failures of the exchange websites raise grave alarms about the technocratic vision at the core of Obamacare. That technocratic vision begins from the notion that we already possess the knowledge it takes to run an efficient health-financing system and all that remains is to apply that knowledge from the center, with the government defining the insurance product strictly and then compelling insurers to sell it, compelling consumers to buy it, managing the countless assorted variables and pressures involved, and calling what results a market. The idea that this kind of approach could address the immense problems of our system, could reach the right balance of risk in the newly created insurance exchanges, could avoid immense unintended consequences, and could result in a desirable balance between quality and cost is the dubious proposition that the Democrats, on a strict party line, have decided the country should test. The fact that the people charged with making all this happen cannot properly manage the development of a web site does not prove the proposition false, of course, but it surely calls for very deep doubts — and the failure of the enrollment site also raises real and practical obstacles to the implementation of the new system. The first and surely easiest test has gone far worse than anyone expected, though the ultimate outcome remains to be seen.

From Part V of SCOTUSBlog’s interview with the SG:

“I happened to be here during a period of real historical importance. And it was my responsibility to lead the representation of the United States in these matters of real historical importance. And, therefore I was able to participate in history, in its making, and have some influence—you know, time will only tell what that was—but have some influence in history going down one path versus another. And . . . that’s an awesome responsibility. And, it’s one that fills me with a sense of very deep gratitude: that I was lucky enough to be here during this time, doing that work[;] . . . that’s really pretty amazing.”

Some airlines allow them to be inherited. Others don’t. Here’s the breakdown.

H/T Property Prof

Some wise words from CT:

Each step of his career served as a “building block” for the next thing, Thomas said, directly addressing his student audience. “There are little things that you pick up along the way – how you conduct yourself, how you do your job, how you deal with other people, how you treat people.  I have been places with people who I would otherwise respect, and I watch what they do when they pass one of the cleaning people, or the [servers] at the tables.  Are they officious, or do they treat them as they would like to be treated?  All those things you can learn in any job,” he said.

Treating others the way he would like to be treated is an approach he takes even in crafting his judicial opinions, he said, in response to Levi’s observation that his opinions and dissents are always respectful in tone.