Property Law Developments—Joseph William Singer

In the late  19th century, the United States took lands from American Indian nations and transferred them to individual tribal members. Those lands were often managed by the federal government through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) which would arrange to lease the lands for grazing and mining purposes. The U.S. was supposed to pay the royalties to the Indian owners but often did not do so and over time many records were lost. Twenty years of litigation has ended with a settlement by which the US will pay $1.4 billion to class members (roughly $1000 per person) and in addition establish a $2 billion fund for the voluntary buy-back and consolidation of fractionated land interests. Read Interior Department press release. Here is the Turtletalk report on the settlement.

In a split 3-2 decision, Kaur v. N. Y. State Urb. Dev. Corp., 2009 WL 4348472, (N.Y. App. Div. Dec. 3, 2009), an appellate court in New York found a defective process of determining that a neighborhood was blighted and thus the taking was for the private purpose of helping Columbia University rather than the public purpose of redeveloping a blighted neighborhood. read article.

This occurred only a couple of weeks after New York’s high court, the Court of Appeals, held in Goldstein v. N.Y. State Urb. Dev. Corp., 2009 WL 4030939 (N.Y. Nov. 24, 2009), strongly reaffirmed (in a 6-1 decision) that property can be taken for economic development purposes under the state constitution to remove urban blight and that courts should generally defer to legislative determinations of when blight exists. read article

Studies of young children show that babies are innately sociable and helpful to others, Michael Tomasello writes in his book, “Why We Cooperate.” For example, “when infants 18 months old see an unrelated adult whose hands are full and who needs assistance opening a door or picking up a dropped clothespin, they will immediately help.” Read article.