LAW 728 - Constitutional Property Rights

This one-credit, two-week course is a compact primer on aspects of property rights law and litigation, introducing students to real-world property-rights litigation and practice. There is no prerequisite for taking this course (apart from the first-year Property course), and the course is intended and designed to supplement (not replace) the concepts and materials presented in full-semester property-related courses, such as the Eminent Domain and Property Rights course and the Land Use Control course.

The course’s focus on federal eminent-domain litigation will tie together other foundational areas of law, including constitutional law, federal civil procedure, and legal history. The course begins by exploring the Anglo-American history of property rights and progresses to an examination of the government’s sovereign and inherent power to take private property for public use and the Supreme Court’s recent property-rights jurisprudence. This course will benefit students by showing how theoretical concepts of property rights shape and affect real-world controversies and litigation.