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AndrewHerink-FirstPaper 4 - 10 Feb 2008 - Main.AdamCarlis
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | | In pre-industrial Anglo-American law, judges employed a Lockean notion of labor to justify property rights. In Keeble v. Hickering (1707), defendant had fired a gun, scattering birds that had landed in plaintiff’s fowl trap. The court gave plaintiff title to these birds for he had caught the birds “in the use of that employment of his freehold, his art, and skill.” Plaintiff’s individual labor created the property right. In Pierson v. Post (1805), the court used a similar argument to determine hunters’ rights of original acquisition. Title to wild animals was given to those who, “by their industry and labour, have used such means of apprehending them.” Again individual effort meant a property right. | |
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- Didn't the court in Pierson v. Post award the fox to the party that just snuck up at the end and killed the thing? The other party had put in dramatically more effort, organizing a hunting party, tracking the fox with dogs, etc. Perhaps the court was not rewarding industry and labor generally, but rewarding the ultimate apprehension/killing? -- AdamCarlis 12 Feb 2008
| | | The Lockean concept of individual labor creating property continued to hold weight, even as the Industrial Revolution began. For instance in Weatherbee v. Green (1871), where plaintiff greatly increased the value of wood he had accidentally appropriated, the court stated that “when the right to the improved article is the point in issue, the question, how much the property or labor of each has contributed to make it what it is, must always be of first importance.” Here, one’s labor is directly equated with one’s property. |
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