Community and custom in property

Theoretical Inquiries in Law

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 2008, Pages

  Smith, Henry E ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 58149401035     PISSN: None     EISSN: 15653404     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2202/1565-3404.1206     Document Type: Article

References (233)

1. See, e.g., State of Oregon ex rel. Thornton v. Hay, 462 P.2d 671 (Or. 1969).
2. For an explicit acceptance of custom as the standard for use in adverse possession, see Nome 2000 v. Fagerstrom, 799 P.2d 304 (Alaska 1990). In other cases, customary use in terms of what is expected for the neighborhood is quite common. See, e.g., Howard v. Kunto, 477 P.2d 210 (1970) (seasonal use of vacation home suffices for continuity requirement in adverse possession).
3. See, e.g., Sturges v. Bridgman, 11 Ch. D. 852, 865 (1879);
4. see also Robert C. Ellickson, Alternatives to Zoning: Covenants, Nuisance Rules, and Fines as Land Use Controls, 40 U. CHI. L. REV. 681, 728-33 (1973) (proposing nuisance liability for activities that are perceived to be "unneighborly under contemporary community standards").
5. Tenants are expected to return leased premises to landlords at the end of the leasehold in their initial condition, normal wear and tear excepted. See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF PROP.: LANDLORD AND TENANT § 12.2(3) (1977). In most applications, this can also be regarded as a contractual default, making the application of custom easier than in more impersonal contexts.
6. Henry E. Smith, The Language of Property: Form, Context, and Audience, 55 STAN. L. REV. 1105 (2003).
7. WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, 1 COMMENTARIES *63-92; FRIEDRICH A. HAYEK, NEW STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND THE HISTORY OF IDEAS (1978);
8. FRIEDRICH A. HAYEK, LAW, LEGISLATION AND LIBERTY 46-47 (1973) [HEREINAFTER HAYEK, LAW, LEGISLATION AND LIBERTY];
9. FRIEDRICH CARL VON SAVIGNY, OF THE VOCATION OF OUR AGE FOR LEGISLATION AND JURISPRUDENCE (Abraham Hayward trans., Arno Press 1975) (1814);
10. Richard A. Epstein, International News Service v. Associated Press: Custom and Law as Sources of Property Rights in News, 78 VA. L. REV. 85, 101-02 (1992).
11. Others, like Robert Ellickson and to some extent Eugen Ehrlich, do not emphasize how the law incorporates custom but rather stress the role of custom as sometimes contradictory to but also often more important than law in everyday life.
12. See EUGEN EHRLICH, FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF LAW (W. Moll trans., Harvard Univ. Press 1936) (1913);
13. ROBERT C. ELLICKSON, ORDER WITHOUT LAW (1991). As mentioned earlier, I am focusing here on the transmission of norms from custom to law; cf. David Nelken, Eugen Ehrlich, Living Law, and Plural Legalities, 9 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 443 (2008) (arguing that Ehrlich's living law captured the interdependence of official and unofficial law).
14. JEREMY BENTHAM, A COMMENT ON THE COMMENTARIES AND A FRAGMENT ON GOVERNMENT (J.H. Burns & H.L.A. Hart eds., 1931);
15. JEREMY BENTHAM, THE THEORY OF LEGISLATION 109-22 (CK. Ogden ed., 1931);
16. HENRY SUMNER MAINE, ANCIENT LAW 1-20 (Transaction Publishers 2002) (3d ed. 1866).
17. BRUNO LEONI, FREEDOM AND THE LAW 216-18 (3d ed. 1991).
18. See, e.g., State of Oregon ex rel. Thornton v. Hay, 462 P.2d 671 (Or. 1969);
19. J.H. BALFOUR BROWNE, THE LAW OF USAGES AND CUSTOMS (S.S. Clarke ed., Jersey City, Frederick D. Linn & Co. 1st Am. ed. 1881) (1875);
20. JOHN D. LAWSON, THE LAW OF USAGES AND CUSTOMS (St. Louis, F.H. Thomas & Co. 1881).
21. BLACKSTONE, 1 COMMENTARIES *76-78.
22. See Francis Heylighen, Advantages and Limitations of Formal Expression, 4 FOUND. SCI. 25, 49-53 (1999);
23. Smith, supra note 5, at 1112-13.
24. BLACKSTONE, 1 COMMENTARIES *78.
25. SAVIGNY, supra note 6, at 19;
26. FRIEDRICH CARL VON SAVIGNY, SYSTEM OF THE MODERN ROMAN LAW 36-37 (William Holloway trans., 1980);
27. see also Leoni, supra note 9, at 218;
28. Anna di Robilant, Genealogies of Soft Law, 54 AM. J. COMP. L. 499, 527-32 (2006).
29. BROWNE, supra note 10, § 17, at 20-21.
30. See, e.g., Jean-Marc Dewaele, How to Measure Formality in Speech: A Model of Synchronic Variation, in APPROACHES TO SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 119 (Kari Sajavaara & Courtney Fairweather eds., 1996).
31. See, e.g., Christopher Rhoads, What Did U $@y? Online Language Finds Its Voice, WALL ST. J., Aug. 23, 2007, available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB 118679550023894850.html; Leet, in WIKIPEDIA, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet#-note-4 (last visited May 1, 2008). Even the term "Leet" or "1337" (and other variants) originated from having "elite" status online.
32. The need for jurors to deliberate over custom may reinforce this effect, depending in part on the size of the jury and how many votes are required for a verdict.
33. The substantive requirements of certainty, uniformity, and notoriety also require certain types of testimony and forbid others. See browne, supra note 10, § 72, at 117-25;
34. id. at 120 n.6 (citing Cope v. Dodd, 13 Pa. 33 (1850)).
35. John Hasnas, Hayek, the Common Law, and Fluid Drive, 1 N.Y.U. J.L. & LIBERTY 79 (2005).
36. HAYEK, LAW, LEGISLATION AND LIBERTY, supra note 6, at 72-74.
37. Hasnas, supra note 20, at 100. By contrast, Richard Posner criticizes Hayek for assuming that the process of adopting custom as law required excessive passivity of judges.
38. See Richard A. Posner, Hayek, Law, and Cognition, 1 N.Y.U. J.L. & LIBERTY 147, 150 (2005).
39. Hayek viewed judges, like any other candidate for central planner, as unable to gather and use the information required for engineering correct rules in the fashion Posner assumes.
40. See Todd J. Zywicki & Anthony B. Sanders, Posner, Hayek, and the Economic Analysis of Law, 93 iowal. REV. 559 (2008).
41. See, e.g., JOHN AUSTIN, THE PROVINCE OF JURISPRUDENCE DETERMINED 30-32 (Noonday 1954) (1832) ("[B]efore [a custom] is adopted by the courts, and clothed with the legal sanction, it is merely a rule of positive morality.");
42. Richard Craswell, Do Trade Customs Exist?, in THE JURISPRUDENTIAL FOUNDATIONS OF CORPORATE AND COMMERCIAL LAW 132 (Jody S. Kraus & Steven D. Walt eds., 2000) (arguing that trade customs do not make an independent substantive contribution in cases ostensibly involving custom).
43. James Q. Whitman, Why Did the Revolutionary Lawyers Confuse Custom and Reason?, 58 U. CHI. L. REV. 1321 (1991).
44. See George Rutherglen, Custom and Usage as Action Under Color of State Law: An Essay on the Forgotten Terms of Section 1983, 89 VA. L. REV. 925 (2003).
45. Id. at 960;
46. see also H.L.A. HART, THE CONCEPT OF LAW 44-49, 100-10 (2d ed. 1994). On the compatibility of Legal Realism and Legal Positivism,
47. see Brian Leiter, Legal Realism and Legal Positivism Reconsidered, 111 ETHICS 278 (2001).
48. See, e.g., MORTON J. HORWITZ, THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN LAW, 1879-1960: THE CRISIS OF LEGAL ORTHODOXY 211-12 (1992) (arguing that in fashioning the Uniform Commercial Code, Karl Llewellyn "endowed economically dominant commercial practices with undeserved normativity").
49. See, e.g., Gavin Wright & Karen Clay, Order Without Law: Property Rights During the California Gold Rush, 42 EXPLORATIONS ECON. HIST. 155, 169 (2005);
50. see also David e. Bernstein, Lochner, Parity, and the Chinese Laundry Cases, 41 WM.& MARY L. REV. 211 (1999) (discussing state anti-Chinese legislation and its invalidation by Lochner-era federal courts on Fourteenth Amendment grounds);
51. Thomas Wuil Joo, New "Conspiracy Theory" of the Fourteenth Amendment: Nineteenth Century Chinese Civil Rights Cases and the Development of Substantive Due Process Jurisprudence, 29 U.S.F. L. REV. 353 (1995) (arguing that the motivation for federal courts to strike down anti-Chinese legislation was the desire to protect economic liberty under the Fourteenth Amendment). The homogeneity of the miners' culture probably made developing and enforcing norms easier, using common cultural focal points, but the exclusionary aspect had its dark and violent side as well.
52. See Andrea G. McDowell, From Commons to Claims: Property Rights in the California Gold Rush, 14 YALE J.L. & HUMAN. 1 (2002);
53. Richard O. Zerbe, Jr. & C. Leigh Anderson, Culture and Fairness in the Development of Institutions in the California Gold Fields, 61 J. ECON. HIST. 114 (2001). The appropriateness of custom for outsiders depends in part on the content of the custom and the extent to which it legitimately constitutes the group, and these issues sometimes arise under the reasonableness test for custom. Carol Rose, The Comedy of the Commons: Custom, Commerce, and Inherently Public Property, 53 U. CHI. L. REV. 711, 769 (1986).
54. On the tension, both historical and theoretical, between custom and standardization, see infra Section IV.A.
55. ELLICKSON, supra note 7, at 4-6.
56. Id. at 138-40;
57. see also Talia Fisher, Nomas Without Narrative, 9 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 473 (2008);
58. John Hasnas, The Depoliticization of Law, 9 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 529, 534-41 (2008);
59. Oliver E. Williamson, Credible Commitments:Using Hostages to Support Exchange, 73 AM. ECON. REV. 519, 520, 537 (1983).
60. Courts vary in this regard, but interestingly courts that reject custom tend to disparage custom as a source of law rather than get into the merits of which rule is better. One procedural explanation for this phenomenon is that the role of custom is often couched in terms of whether evidence on the custom is admissible or not. In such cases, custom is not allowed to trump general rules of law. For example, in Fisher v. Steward, 1 Smith 60 (N.H. 1804), the court declared: It has been said, that, by the usage of this part of the State, the person who finds bees acquires a property in them wherever found. We recognize no such usage. We have no local customs or usages which are binding in one part of the State and not in another. If this be the law here, it must be so in every other part of the State.
61. An exception is the growing awareness that outsider British colonists tended to discount customary rights that did not fit into an English law mold. See, e.g., WILLIAM CRONON, CHANGES IN THE LAND: INDIANS, COLONISTS, AND THE ECOLOGY OF NEW ENGLAND 58-81 (1983);
62. Stuart Banner, Two Properties, One Land: Law and Space in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand, 24 IAW & SOC. INQUIRY 807, 811-12 (1999).
63. Also, the complexity of local custom in common property regimes is difficult for outsiders to understand and therefore not easily susceptible to trading on a market. Carol M. Rose, Expanding the Choices for the Global Commons: Comparing Newfangled Tradable Allowance Schemes to Old-Fashioned Common Property Regime, 10 DUKE ENVTL. L. & POL'Y F. 45, 63-66 (1999) (discussing how common property regimes "can be very complex and can baffle outsiders entirely," making them difficult to trade);
64. see also James Salzman & J.B. Ruhl, Currencies and the Commodification of Environmental Law, 53 STAN. L. REV. 607 (2000) (exploring the tension between nonfungibilities of environmental commodities and their tradability). In our terms, markets are an extensive context calling for reduced information intensiveness along a variety of dimensions.
65. See Smith, supra note 5, at 1189;
66. see also supra notes 15-16 and accompanying text.
67. ELLICKSON, supra note 7, at 167-83.
68. Jennifer Steinhauer, So, the Brain Tumor's on the Left, Right? Seeking Ways to Reduce Mix-Ups in the Operating Room, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 1, 2001, at A23; Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Making Health Care Safer: A Critical Analysis of Patient Safety Practices, ch. 43.2: Strategies to Avoid Wrong-Site Surgery (July 2001), available at http://www.ahrq.gov/ clinic/ptsafety/chap43b.htm;
69. see also Smith, supra note 5, at 1138-39;
70. James W. Saxton & Maggie M. Finkelstein, Can Adhesive Labels Prevent Wrong Site Surgery and Reduce Liability Risk?, 12 WIDENER L. REV. 293 (2005).
71. Smith, supra note 5, at 1148-57, 1177-90.
72. See, e.g., U.C.C. § 1-201(a) (2004) ("Unless the context otherwise requires, words or phrases defined in this section, or in the additional definitions contained in other articles of [the Uniform Commercial Code] that apply to particular articles or parts thereof, have the meanings stated.");
73. id. § 2-202 (course of performance and parole or extrinsic evidence).
74. Smith, supra note 5, at 1177-90.
75. Thomas W. Merrill & Henry E. Smith, Optimal Standardization in the Law of Property: The Numerus Clausus Principle, 110 YALE L.J. 1 (2000);
76. Smith, supra note 5, at 1148-57.
77. Smith, supra note 5, at 1148-67;
78. Henry E. Smith, Modularity in Contracts:Boilerplate and Information Flow, 104 MICH. L. rEV. 1175, 1207-14 (2006).
79. Merrill & Smith, supra note 39, at 54-55 (assignments);
80. Smith, supra note 5, at 1186-87 (third-party beneficiaries);
81. id. at 1166 & n.215 (tortious interference).
82. Henry E. Smith, Exclusion Versus Governance: Two Strategies for Delineating Property Rights, 31 J. IEGAL STUD. S453 (2002).
83. Id.; Henry E. Smith, Exclusion and Property Rules in the Law of Nuisance, 90 VA. L. REV. 965, 1021-45 (2004).
84. This particular problem is familiar in property from the famous case of Pierson v. Post, 3 Cai. 175 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1805). On the communicative aspect of the case, see Carol M. Rose, Possession as the Origin of Property, 52 U. CHI. L. rEV. 73, 78, 85 (1985);
85. Smith, supra note 5, at 1117-19.
86. HERBERT A. SIMON, THE SCIENCES OF THE ARTIFICIAL (2d ed. 1981);
87. see also MODULARITY IN DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION (Gerhard Schlosser & Günter P. Wagner eds., 2004);
88. Lauren W. Ancel & Walter Fontana, Plasticity, Evolvability,and Modularity in RNA, 288 J. EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY 242 (2000);
89. Günter P. Wagner & Lee Altenberg, Complex Adaptations and the Evolution of Evolvability, 50 EVOLUTION 967 (1996);
90. John J. Welch & David Waxrnan, Modularity and the Cost of Complexity, 57 EVOLUTION 1723 (2003).
91. Object oriented programming in particular employs modularity. See, e.g., GRADY BOOCH, OBJECT-ORIENTED ANALYSIS AND DESIGN (1994);
92. EDWARD YOURDON, OBJECT-ORIENTED SYSTEM DESIGN: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH (1994).
93. See, e.g., CARLISS Y. BALDWIN & KIM B. CLARK, DESIGN Rules: THE POWER OF MODULARITY 6-11, 169-94 (2000).
94. Henry E.Smith, Property and Property Rules, N.Y.U.L. REV. 1719, 1758-64 (2004);
95. Smith, supra note 43, at 1021-45.
96. See J.E. PENNER, THE IDEA OF PROPERTY IN LAW 29-30, 71 (1997);
97. Thomas W. Merrill & Henry E. Smith, What Happened to Property in Law and Economics?, 101 YALE L.J. 357, 359 (2001);
98. Smith, supra note 5, at 1151;
99. Smith, supra note 42, at S475.
100. See, e.g., Ploof v. Putnam, 71 A. 188 (Vt. 1908).
101. WILLIAM L. PROSSER, HANDBOOK OF THE LAW OF TORTS § 89, at 596-602 (4th ed. 1971) (considering the "reasonable use" balancing test and citing modern case applications). Under the Second Restatement, a nuisance is a substantial nontrespassory invasion of use and enjoyment of land that is caused either by intentional and unreasonable activities, or negligent, reckless, or ultrahazardous activities. RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS "§§ 821F, 822, 826-28 (1979);
102. 6A AMERICAN LAW OF PROPERTY § 28.22, at 66, § 28.26, at 75-77 (A. James Casner ed., 1954) (emphasizing the vagaries associated with, and importance of, a determination as to whether a defendant's conduct is unreasonable);
103. FOWLER V. hARPER & FLEMING JAMES, JR., THE LAW OF TORTS § 1.24, at 70-74 (1956) (discussing the importance of reasonableness considerations in nuisance cases).
104. See generally Jeff L. LEWIN, Boomer and the American Law of Nuisance, 54 ALB. L. REV. 189, 212-14 (documenting the limited adoption of the balance of the utilities test for reasonableness, and citing cases);
105. Smith, supra note 43.
106. See BALDWIN & CLARK, supra note 47; MANAGING IN THE MODULAR AGE: ARCHITECTURES, NETWORKS AND ORGANIZATIONS (Raghu Garud, Arun Kumaraswamy & Richard N. Langlois eds., 2003);
107. Richard N. Langlois, Modularity in Technology and Organization, 49 J. ECON. BEHAV. & ORG. 19 (2002).
108. See, e.g., LESLBY MILROY, LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL NETWORKS 139-44 (1980);
109. James Milroy & Lesley Milroy, Mechanisms of Change in Urban Dialects: TheRole of Class, Social Network and Gender, in 1 THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS READER: MULTILINGUALISM AND VARIATION 179 (Peter Trudgill & Jenny Cheshire eds., 1998).
110. See, e.g., Aaron Clauset, M.E.J. Newman & Christopher Moore, Finding Community Structure in Very Large Networks, 70 PHYS. REV. E 70, 066111 (2004);
111. M.E.J. Newman, Modularity and Community Structure in Networks, 103 proc. Natl. ACAD. SCI. USA 8577 (2006).
112. Social distance may but need not correlate with geographic and temporal distance.
113. See, e.g., JOHN SEELY BROWN & PAUL DUGUID, THE SOCIAL lIFE OF INFORMATION 11 -33, 167-70, 223-31 (2002) (arguing for the importance of non-explicit knowledge in the information age and the importance of social distance).
114. See, e.g., Dewaele, supra note 16.
115. 58Mark S. Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties, 78 AM. J. SOC. 1360 (1973);
116. see also Mark Granovetter, Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness, 91 AM. J. SOC. 481 (1985).
117. See Smith, supra note 5;
118. Smith, supra note 40.
119. See sources cited in supra note 12.
120. Craswell, supra note 23.
121. Craswell employs the semantics-pragmatics distinction to argue that customs can carry different types of information in varying contexts. Id. at 129-35.
122. See, e.g., W.O. AULT, OPEN-FIELD FARMING IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND: A STUDY OF VILLAGE BY-LAWS 123, 137, 141 (1972) (stinting of sheep); Eric KERRIDGE, THE COMMON FIELDS OF ENGLAND 77 (1992) (same).
123. Cf. AULT, supra note 63, at 53-54 (hypothesizing that the lack of early written rules or case records on encroachment by planting on a neighboring furrow can be explained by the obviousness of the rule in a close-knit community).
124. See, e. g., ELINOR OSTROM, GOVERNING THE COMMONS (1990);
125. Rose, supra note 28; James M. Acheson, Management of Common-Property Resources, in ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY 351 (Stuart Plattner ed., 1989).
126. See, e.g., Lisa Bernstein, Opting Out of the Legal System: Extralegal Contractual Relations in the Diamond Industry, 21 J. IEGAL STUD. 115 (1992);
127. Lisa Bernstein, Merchant Law in a Merchant Court: Rethinking the Code's Search for Immanent Business Norms, 144 U. PA. L. REV. 1765 (1996);
128. Lisa Bernstein, Private Commercial Law in the Cotton Industry: Creating Cooperation Through Rules, Norms, and Institutions, 99 MICH. L. REV. 1724 (2001).
129. The efficiency and fairness of making a custom binding for the first time raises related systemic and individual issues. From the systemic point of view, both the custom and its legal force should be predictable. From an individual point of view, a party may be aware of the custom even though actors in a similar situation would not be. In such cases I would hypothesize that courts would turn to equity which is both in personam and heavily reliant on notice.
130. See Richard H. McAdams, A Focal Point Theory of Expressive Law, 86 VA. L. REV. 1649, 1659-63 (2000).
131. DAVID HUME, A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE 327 (David Fate Norton & Mary J. Norton eds., Oxford Univ. Press 2000) (1739);
132. THOMAS W. MERRILL & HENRY E. SMITH, PROPERTY: PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES 172-75 (2007);
133. ROBERT SUGDEN, THE ECONOMICS OF RiGHTS, CO-OPERATION & WELFARE 87-88, 97-99 (1986);
134. Thomas W. Merrill, Establishing Ownership: First Possession and Accession (2008) (unpublished manuscript, on file with author).
135. Carruth v. Easterling, 150 So.2d 852, 855 (Miss. 1963) (quoting 4 AM. JUR. 2D Animals § 10).
136. See generally Merrill, supra note 69.
137. THOMAS C. SCHELLING, THE STRATEGY OF CONFLICT 55-56 (1963);
138. see also id. at 97; Judith Mehta, Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, The Nature of Salience: An Experimental Investigation of Pure Coordination Games, 84 AM. ECON. REV. 658 (1994);
139. Robert Sugden, A Theory of Focal Points, 105 ECON. J. 533 (1995).
140. Higher stakes can make incurring more communication costs worthwhile. See Smith, supra note 5, at 1155;
141. Smith, supra note 43, at 966-997, 1007. The anti-formalism of the Legal Realists and their successors can be regarded sympathetically as a response to the higher stakes of use conflict and other problems, or, less charitably, as a fallacious disregard of information costs, or perhaps more realistically, as some of both.
142. Ghen v. Rich, 8 F. 159 (D. Mass. 1881). On the efficiency of the substance of the rule, see Robert C. Ellickson, A Hypothesis of Wealth-Maximizing Norms: Evidence from the Whaling Industry, 5 J.L. ECON. & ORG. 83, 93 (1989).
143. See sources cited in supra note 65; Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, 162 SCIENCE 1243 (1968). However, Hardin popularized the treatment in the academic literature.
144. See H.S. Gordon, The Economic Theory of a Common Property Resource: The Fishery, 62 J. POL. ECON. 124 (1954);
145. Jens Warming, Om "Grundrente" of Fiskegrunde, 49 NATIONALÖKONOMISK TLDSSKRIFT 495 (1911), translated in P. Anderson, "On Rent of Fishing Grounds": A Translation of Jens Warming's 1911 Article, with an Introduction, 15 HIST. POL. ECON. 391 (1983);
146. Jens Warming, Aalgaardsretten, 69 NATIONALÖKONOMISK TLADSSKRIFT 151 (1931).
147. Hanoch Dagan & Michael A. Heller, The Liberal Commons, 110 YALE L.J. 549 (2001).
148. Thomas W. Merrill & Henry E. Smith, The Property/Contract Interface, 101 COLUM. L. REV. 773, 843-49 (2001).
149. Smith, supra note 5, at 1122-25.
150. Generally in an agricultural lease the default was that the lessee must use on the land manure produced by animals grazing on that land. See, e.g., Lassell v. Reed, 6 Me. 222 (1829);
151. Daniels v. Pond, 38 Mass. (21 Pick.) 367 (1838);
152. Middlebrook v. Corwin, 15 Wend. 169 (N.Y. 1836);
153. Hill v. De Rochemont, 48 N.H. 87 (1868);
154. Lewis v. Jones, 17 Pa. 262 (1851).
155. Pinkham v. Gear, 3 N.H. 484 (1826); 2 TIFFANY ON REAL PROPERTY § 629 (3d ed.1939).
156. But see Fay v. Muzzey, 79 Mass. (13 Gray) 53 (1859).
157. On mortgages, see, for example, Perry v. Carr, 44 N.H. 118 (1862); Sawyer v. Twiss, 26 N.H. 345 (1853).
158. But see Staples v. Emery, 7 Me. 201 (1831). On sales, see, for example, Kittredge v. Woods, 3 N.H. 503 (1826); Goodrich v. Jones, 2 Hill 142 (N.Y. 1841).
159. But see Ruckman v. Outwater, 28 N.J. 581 (1860).
160. Ellickson, supra note 7, at 52-53, 72-76;
161. Merrill & Smith, supra note 49, at 388-94;
162. Smith, supra note 5, at 1116-17.
163. See, e.g., Kenneth R. Vogel, The Coase Theorem and California Animal Trespass Law, 16 J. LEGAL STUD. 149, 152 (1987).
164. ELLICKSON, supra note 7, at 52-53, 72-76.
165. Merrill & Smith, supra note 49, at 388-94;
166. Smith, supra note 5, at 1116-17.
167. Ellickson, supra note 73.
168. 23 F. Cas. 558, 559 (D. Mass. 1872) (No. 13, 696).
169. Id. at 559-60.
170. Id. at 559.
171. ]89 20 F. Cas. 458, 459 (CCD. Mass. 1837) (No. 11,657).
172. Id. at 459. For a discussion of a variety of judicial pronouncements for and against use of trade customs,
173. see LAWSON, supra note 10, §§ 4-5.
174. Ghen v. Rich, 8 F. 159, 162 (D. Mass. 1881).
175. Id. (quoting Swift v. Gifford, 23 F. Cas. 558, 559-60 (D. Mass. 1872) (No. 13,696)).
176. 1 Smith 60 (N.H. 1804).
177. Id. at 62.
178. On the process by which mining custom became law, see, for example, McDowell, supra note 28;
179. David B. Schorr, Appropriation as Agrarianism: Distributive Justice in the Creation of Property Rights, 32 ECOLOGY L.Q. 3 (2005);
180. Zerbe & Anderson, supra note 28.
181. McDowell, supra note 28, at 42-43.
182. Zerbe & Anderson, supra note 28.
183. McDowell, supra note 28, at 6, 58-60.
184. Id. at 44 ("The miners clearly attempted to devise some clear, conspicuous form of notice that would indicate the boundaries of the claim and the name of its holder. It was in every miner's interest to provide notice of his claim, to discourage others from working it, and to support his case if it was jumped and there was a dispute. But it was in the newcomer's interest that notice be required, so that a claim that was not clearly marked would be liable to be jumped.").
185. Morton v. Solambo Copper Mining Co., 26 Cal. 527, 532-33 (1864) (emphasis added).
186. 30 U.S.C. § 23 (2000).
187. Union Oil v. Smith, 249 U.S. 337 (1919).
188. See, e.g., William J. Forman, Robert G. Dwyer & C. Robert Fox, Judicial Uncertainties in Applying the Mining Doctrine of "Pedis Possessio," 3 NAT. RESOURCES LAW. 467 (1970).
189. Field v. Grey, 25 P. 793, 794 (Ariz. 1881); Miller v. Chrisman, 73 P. 1083, 1086 (Cal. 1903), aff'd, 197 U.S. 313 (1905);
190. James M. Finberg, The General Mining Law and the Doctrine of Pedis Possessio: The Case For Congressional Action, 49 U. CHI. L. REV. 1026, 1036 (1982).
191. MacGuire v. Sturgis, 347 F. Supp. 580 (D.C. Wyo. 1971); see also Continental Oil Co. v. Natrona Service, Inc., 588 F.2d 792, 798 (10th Cir. 1978).
192. 347 F. Supp. 580 (D.C. Wyo. 1971).
193. Id at 584.
194. 601 P.2d 1339- (Ariz. 1979).
195. The baseline or background has long been a problem in takings. See, e.g., Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Comm'n, 505 U.S. 1003, 1029-30 (1992) (holding that regulations that prohibit all economically beneficial uses of land are takings if they prohibit uses not actionable under prior "background law" of property and nuisance);
196. Richard A. Epstein, Takings, Exclusivity and Speech: The Legacy of Prune Yard v. Robins, 64 U. CHI. L. REV. 21, 22-28 (1997) (arguing for common law nuisance as the baseline for takings law). Custom and traditions should form part of the baseline for takings.
197. See Carol M. Rose, Mahon Reconstructed: Why the Takings Issue Is Still a Muddle, 57 S. CAL. L. REV. 561, 598-99 (1984) (proposing that inquiry into property traditions will help uncover ordinary understandings that need takings protection and those that need to evolve). Nuisance is not the full sum of such a baseline but even nuisance itself is based in part on local custom.
198. See Ellickson, supra note 3, at 728-33 (developing a theory of nuisance liability based on local community standards of behavior).
199. Merrill & Smith, supra note 39.
200. Id. at 7 n.15;
201. see also ÉMILE CHÉNON, LES DÉMEMBREMENTS DE lA PROPRIÉTÉ FONCIÈRE EN FRANCE AVANT ET APRÈS LA RÉVOLUTION § 60, at 91-183 (2d ed. 1923).
202. Merrill & Smith, supra note 39, at 4-5, 9-12, 23-24.
203. Id. at 20-24;
204. see also Bernard Rudden, Economic Theory v. Property Law: The Numerus Clausus Problem, in OXFORD eSSAYS IN JURISPRUDENCE 239 (John Eekelaar & John Bell eds., 3d Series 1987).
205. 248 U.S. 215 (1918).
206. See Epstein, supra note 6 (arguing for result in INS v. AP on the basis of prior custom).
207. See Yin Tian, Reflection on the Criticism of Numerus Clausus, 1 FRONT. L. CHINA 92, 94-95 (2006) (discussing and citing literature).
208. Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419 (1982).
209. In the case of trespass, de minimis violations often happen without litigation. Whether a de minimis exception of some sort would track ordinary understanding and thus be simpler is a closer case than the use of physical invasions to pick out many cases for per se treatment. Although the Loretto result has come in for a large share of criticism, see, e.g., Michael A. Heller & James E. Krier, Deterrence and Distribution in the Law of Takings, 112 HARV. L. REV. 997, 1007-09 (1999) (calling the per se rule for permanent physical invasions "passing strange" from the point of view of deterrence and distribution), viewing it as the analog of trespass and the extension to a new utility (cable television) of past practice (electricity, telephones) of using eminent domain makes it understandable as an exercise in rough simplicity.
210. See MERRILL & SMITH, SUPRA note 69, at 1297-98.
211. Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 415 (1922).
212. 505 U.S. 1003 (1992).
213. See id. at 1031-32.
214. See id. at 1055 (Blackmun, J., dissenting);
215. id. at 1068-70 (Stevens, J., dissenting).
216. See id. at 1031.
217. See, e.g., William W. Fisher III, The Trouble with Lucas, 45 STAN. L. REV. 1393, 1407 (1993) ("[W]hat is most striking about the holding of Lucas is that it embeds in the already muddy law of takings ⋯ the even muddier law of nuisance.");
218. Michael C. Blumm & Lucus Ritchie, Lucas's Unlikely Legacy: The Rise of Background Principles as Categorical Takings Defenses, 29 HARV. ENVTL. L. REV. 321, 323, 333-34, 367 (2005) (noting that contextual analysis in nuisance law is in tension with the categorical approach to takings in Lucas).
219. 1 h.G. WOOD, A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE LAW OF NUISANCES IN THEIR VARIOUS FORMS; INCLUDING REMEDIES THEREFORE AT LAW AND IN EQUITY, at iii (San Francisco, Bancroft-Whitney 3d ed. 1893).
220. William Prosser, Nuisance Without Fault, 20 TEX. L. REV. 399, 410 (1942).
221. Warren A. Seavey, Nuisance: Contributory Negligence and Other Mysteries, 65 HARV. L. REV. 984, 984 (1952).
222. 276 U.S. 272 (1928).
223. See, e.g., LOUIS M. SEIDMAN & MARK V. TUSHNET, REMNANTS OF BELIEF: CONTEMPORARY CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES 27 (1996);
224. Warren Samuels, Interrelations Between Legal and Economic Processes, 14 J.L. & econ. 435 (1971);
225. see also BARBARA H. FRIED, THEPROGRESSIVE ASSAULT ON LAISSEZ-FAIRE: ROBERT HALE AND THE FIRST LAW AND ECONOMICS MOVEMENT (1998).
226. 276 U.S. at 279.
227. William A. Fischel, The Law and Economics of Cedar-Apple Rust: State Action and Just Compensation in Miller v. Shoene, 3 REV. L. & ECON. 133, 149-51 (2007).
228. Id.
229. Id.
230. Samuels, supra note 129, at 438-39.
231. Fischel, supra note 131, at 156.
232. Smith, supra note 43, at 990-1007.
233. Fischel, supra note 131, at 189.