Property: Cases, Problems, and Skills

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From renowned environmental and natural resource legal scholar Christine Klein, Property: Cases, Problems, and Skills is a comprehensive casebook that combines the core, doctrinal elements of a 1L Property course with larger, more nuanced social, environmental, and ethical perspectives. This book offers a versatile, middle position in the Property market: it is straightforward and tightly-organized while also avoiding oversimplification. Property: Cases, Problems, and Skills offers a wealth of doctrinal, policy, and theoretical subtleties for professors who want to probe deeper. It adopts a modern, skills-based approach to Property Law, and includes a balance of classic and new cases, narrowly-focused skills exercises (including advocacy, drafting, client interviewing/counseling, and negotiation), and selected statutory excerpts. Chapter review problems (with answers provided in the Appendix for student self-testing) and a host of other pedagogical features such as discussion problems that raise novel and modern challenges, “A Place to Start” doctrinal overview boxes, and “Reading Guide” boxes, aid student understanding and comprehension. A two-color interior breaks up text for easier reading, with judicious use of photographs, text boxes, and pedagogical diagrams. This clear and accessible casebook encourages students to engage with Property law’s complexity, ambiguity, and nuance.

New to the Second Edition:

• New Cases including:
• Maui Electric Co., 408 P.3d 1 (Haw. 2017):Adopting a state constitutional property right to a clean and healthful environment
• Adams v. Woodlands of Nashua, 864 A.2d 322 (N.H. 2005): Distinguishing covenant of quiet enjoyment from implied warranty of habitability
• Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015): Holding the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and highlighting numerous property rights and protections available to spouses under state marital property systems
• In re Estate of Hanau (730 S.W.2d 663 (Tex. 1987): Introducing complexity of marital property systems in the context of spouses migrating from one state to another
• Restatement (Third) of Property, Servitudes: Stand-alone Restatement excerpt
• Styller v. Aylward (Mass. Land Ct. 2018): Considering whether short-term rentals, such as Airbnb, violate single-family zoning restrictions
• Murr v. Wisconsin, 137 S. Ct. 1933 (2017): Refining analysis of the “denominator issue” in a regulatory taking case involving a wild and scenic river

Professors and students will benefit from:

• Tightly and clearly organized text, both substantively and visually, with a balance of new and classic cases
• A shorter page count than other Property casebooks that allows it to focus on the core, doctrinal aspects of Property law
  • Visual aids including maps, diagrams, and photographs
    • Text that clearly identifies the majority/minority/trend status of each rule, as relevant
    • Chapter Reviews include concise post-case notes, multiple choice and essay questions (with answers in the Appendix), and “Bringing it Home” statutory practice (guiding students in researching their state’s statutory coverage of selected topics likely to be regulated by statute)
• “Reading Guide” boxes preceding cases to guide the students in extracting contextual meaning from cases
• A skills exercise in each chapter provides in-depth opportunities for students to develop skills related to the substantive material covered in the chapter
• A discussion problem in each chapter provides a rich factual context to facilitate further exploration of law and policy as applied to fresh, modern contexts
• Post-case notes include “Practice Pointers” asking students to re-draft ambiguous language in documents that precipitated litigation, to explore alternatives to litigation, and to advise clients on litigation strategy
• Notes on “The Place” convey background about the geographic location of the disputed property, designed to remind students that legal disputes can be influenced by physical and human context
• Relevant statutory and Restatement excerpts are collected and presented in one location within the chapter (rather than scattered in snippets throughout).
• Periodic statutory excerpts and exercises introduce students to the interplay of common law and statutory law
• “Test Your Understanding” sections contain problems that the professor can work through during class (with answers in the teacher’s manual), or that can be left to the students for self-directed learning