Michael Allan Wolf, University of Florida Levin College of Law, has posted Property Law as History, which is forthcoming in The Urban Lawyer:
Because property law and history are so inextricably intertwined, it has become even more important for law professors to share with students and colleagues the ways in which knowledge of history unlocks difficult concepts, suggests workable solutions to contemporary puzzles, and makes very dry concepts—destructible contingent remainders, running covenants, privity, and the Rule in Dumpor’s Case—much easier to digest.
Sampling from the doctrinal menu of a typical first-year property course--adverse possession, present estates and future interests, landlord-tenant, concurrent interests, servitudes, land transactions, eminent domain, regulatory takings, and zoning--this article identifies two aspects of the law of property as history, using two sets of property cases and doctrines. The first set of cases illustrates how history helps us to understand property law. The second set contains examples of how property law has actually made history. Because this article is presented to honor David Callies, many of the cases discussed share provenance in the Aloha State.
--Dan Ernst
