Fundamentals of Property Law

The intention of Fundamentals of Property Law, now in its Fourth Edition, is to provide students with a firm grasp of the fundamentals of the law of real and personal property and to help them enjoy the experience. With these objectives in mind, the authors have followed four guidelines in preparing the casebook.

(1) Case selection has emphasized rules that are widely accepted in practice. Included are opinions that adopt a minority view only when they also state the majority position clearly, so that students will not be misled about the current state of the law.
(2) Shorter cases have been preferred over longer ones, and short expositions of the rules have been preferred over treatise-like opinions. Students should also become familiar with the treatises and law review literature on the subjects raised in the cases as casebooks are a necessary, but not sufficient, guide to the law.
(3) Many of the cases and notes that follow them deal with questions of statutory interpretation. The law of real property is less affected by statutory change than many areas of the first year curriculum, but learning to understand the role statutes play in our legal system is of vital importance for all students of the law.
(4) The nature of the law of property is illuminated by many disciplines. The authors emphasize no particular discipline in selecting cases, writing notes, or defining problems; much of the material in the casebook lends itself to a broad approach to the law.