Property 2/9/12 (Adverse Possession: Howard, Carpenter) OH: M (2:15-3:15) and Th (2:15-3:15) Rm 386, 200 bldg y Key Points

o Adverse possession against the government?  Not against the federal  Some states permit (limited) adverse possessor against themselves o Carpenter v. Ruperto  Knowledge that claim has no legal basis= bad faith no AP  AP can be based on color of title or claim of right, which can exist (for example) if theres an honest mistake about boundary line  Minority rule: in most states, APs state of mind is irrelevant o Howard v. Kunto  Standard for continuity determined by norms of property ownership/usage in given time and place  Tacking permitted where APs are in privity  Privity last page on 212 (some kind of voluntary conveyance) P. 214-227 Disability tolls a statute at the time of entry of the AP????????????????????????????? o Toll a statute means to stop the running of the statute of limitations, which means the owner has more time to kick a squatter off land o I.e. underage AP o Clock starts running at the point when the last disability is removed o CA statute on disability measures this differently: when the true owner becomes the true owner is when you begin asking whether the owner is disabled in some way o Toll ends at the end of disability or 20 years (then the clock starts running again) o Majority rule is not to include an imprisoned person (some tolls until the end of imprisonment or 2 or 10 years) o Insane, underage, legally incompetent, or in prison Songbird Inc. v. the Estate of Albert Grossman o Accession case with the hoops: o Sued in conversion rather than copyright o No doctrine of adverse possession for intellectual property o Guggenheim rule- does not apply because it has more  Developed in the stolen art world in which  Acrued from the moment of conversion rule might be unstable o New Jerseys discovery rule- between o Generally a thief who acts affirmatively to conceal property will not be able to assert a defense based on the statute of limitation o Even under this Songbird rule- the open and notorious prong still applies to Iowa rule requires good faith to establish a right to adverse possession (squatters dont win) o Not clear whether the original transfer might have been between friends o Could have been an honest mistake about ownership rights 1

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Sequential possession o Finders (F) and converters (C) o Most courts technically require most finders to acts as bailers (meaning they have possession of the item o Most finders turn into converters o A finder is someone who possesses lost property (not mislaid or abandoned) o A converter is someone is someone who converts at the moment of possession (takes or steals something that is mislaid or holds the property with the true owners consent and then take it as his own i.e. Songbird) Kind of like the Chains of title idea that we saw in Johnson v. MIntosh, the court is evaluated which of two parties has a superior title (usually whoever happened to be the first one to find or convert property) Armory v. Delamirie (1722) o Does not require absolute property but requires rights to it except the true owner o Respondeat Superior o Unless they can prove otherwise, they should assume the jewel is the finest water (the degree of transparency of a diamond or other stone)  Rule: F1>C2 Finder acts as the bailee with certain duties to the true owner, but no one can enforce those rights except the true owner Two examples in which finders have much more qualified ownership: o Japans rule requires turning lost property over to police; the owner must pay o NY has a similar law for lost items greater than $20 o Making law doesnt have much effect unless its societal enforced Moore v. Regents of the University of California