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"Riddle v

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"Riddle v. harmon 102 C.A.3d 542 (1980) [A wife terminated title to joint tenancy she held with her husband, the plaintiff. She severed the title by deeding from herself as a joint tenant to herself as a tenant in common. She then made a will dispos-ing of her half-interest in the property. Shortly thereafter she died, and her husband sued the executor of the estate, the defendant, claiming such direct deeding from herself to herself failed to sever the tenancy. The trial court agreed that deeding through a straw-man was needed, even in the year 1979. The executor appealed.] POCHE, JUSTICE. The basic concept of joint tenancy is that it is one estate that is taken jointly. Under the common “Law,” four unities were essential to the creation and existence of an estate in joint tenancy: interest, time, title, and possession. [The joint ten-ants must have acquired their interest at the same time, by the same instrument, which grants them an equal interest with an undivided right to possession of the entire property.] If one of the unities was destroyed, a tenancy in common remained" "Severance of the joint tenancy extinguishes the principal fea-ture of that estate, the right of survivorship. This “right” is a mere expectancy that arises only upon success in the ultimate gamble— survival—and then only if the unity of the estate has not theretofore been destroyed by voluntary conveyance by partition proceedings, by involuntary alienation under an execution, or by any other action that operates to sever the joint tenancy.An indisputable right of each joint tenant is the power to con-vey his or her separate estate by way of gift or otherwise without the knowledge or consent of the other joint tenant and to thereby terminate the joint tenancy. If a joint tenant conveys to a stranger [often called a “strawman”] and that person reconveys to the same tenant, then no revival of the joint tenancy occurs because the unities are destroyed. The former joint tenants become tenants in common. At common law, one could not create a joint tenancy in him-self and another by a direct conveyance. It was necessary for joint tenants to acquire their interests at the same time (unity of time) and by the same conveyancing instrument (unity of title). So, in order to create a valid joint tenancy where one of the proposed joint tenants already owned an interest in the property, it was first necessary to convey the property to a disinterested third person, a “strawman,” who then conveyed the title to the ultimate grantees as joint tenants. This remains the prevailing practice in some juris-dictions. Other states, including California, have disregarded this application of the unities requirement as one of the obsolete subtle and arbitrary distinctions and niceties of the feudal common law, and allow the creation of a valid joint tenancy without the use of a strawman. By amendment to its Civil Code, California became a pioneer in allowing the creation of a joint tenancy by direct transfer. A joint tenancy conveyance may be made from an owner to himself and others. Accordingly, in California, it is no longer necessary to use a strawman to create a joint tenancy. The “two-to-transfer” notation stems from the English com-mon law feoffment ceremony with livery of seisin. If the ceremony took place upon the land being conveyed, the grantor (feeoffor) would hand a symbol of the land, such as a lump of earth or a twig, to the grantee (feeoffee). In order to complete the investiture of seisin it was necessary that the feeoffor completely relinquish pos-session of the land to the feeoffee. [According to the court, it was not until 1845 that a statute permitted the English to transfer fee ownership by deed. The physical act of passing dirt (seisin) grew out of the illiterate society where people could not conceptualize the fact that mere “rights” and just “things” could be transferred.] One could not be both grantor and grantee in a single transaction. Handing oneself a dirt clod is ungainly. Just as livery of seisin has become obsolete, so should ancient vestiges of that ceremony give way to modern conveyancing realities. We discard the archaic rule that one cannot [transfer to] oneself. We reject the rationale because it rests on a common law notion whose reason for existence vanished about the time that grant deeds and title companies replaced colorful dirt clod ceremonies as the way to transfer title to real property. One joint tenant may uni-laterally sever the joint tenancy without the use of an intermediary device. The judgment is reversed. [The joint tenancy was severed, so the wife’s interest could pass by her will.]" Real 105 Chapter 10 They Took It From Me Part 1. Study the facts: In 1982, Owen purchased Lot A and built a cabin on it. Lot A was located in the mountains. Because of the extended snow season, it was only accessible during warm summer months. In 1982, Owen granted Lot A to Linda. The deed stated, “to Linda for life.” Linda went to stay at the cabin each summer with her friend Jacky. In 1990, Linda died before she could visit Lot A. Owen was in Europe from 1985 to 1995. Jacky continued to visit Lot A every summer. In 1995, Owen returned to the US and went to Lot A. He discovered that Jacky was not only staying there, but had also built a second cabin on Lot A. He immediately instigated a lawsuit against Jacky for trespass. Who owned Lot A at the time of Linda’s death? Write an IRAC-paragraph analyzing the issue of Life Estate. Will Owen prevail against Jacky in his trespass lawsuit? Write an IRAC-paragraph analyzing the issue of Adverse Possession. Discuss all 5 elements of Adverse Possession one at a time in the analysis part. Do not use subheadings Paul v. Darlene Issue: Adverse possession Rule: Method of acquiring real property by one other than the other requiring proof of hostile, open and notorious, actual exclusive use, continuous, and payment of taxes. Analysis: Element 1: Jack was on Jill’s property without permission. Therefore, the use was hostile. Element 2: Jill did not know Jack was on the property. But if she had conducted an inspection, she might have discovered his presence. Element 3: It was unclear what Jack’s intent was. He thought he was going on to his friend Nat’s property. Element 4: Jack was there on weekends only. Thus his use was somewhat continuous. Element 5: Jack paid the property taxes each year. Conclusion: Therefore, for lack of all 5 elements present, Jack did not acquire Blackacre by adverse possession. Continue to part 2. Part 2. Study the case of Nollan v. California Coastal Commission in the textbook. This case was fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision was 5 to 4. Justice Scalia wrote for the majority. Read the following dissenting opinion by Justice Stevens and answer the questions on page 3 of this document. JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE BLACKMUN joins, dissenting. The debate between the Court and JUSTICE BRENNAN illustrates an extremely important point concerning government regulation of the use of privately owned real estate. Intelligent, wellinformed public officials may in good faith disagree about the validity of specific types of landuse regulation. Even the wisest lawyers would have to acknowledge great uncertainty about the scope of this Court's takings jurisprudence. Yet, because of the Court's remarkable ruling in First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. Los Angeles County, 482 U.S. 304 (1987), local governments and officials must pay the price for the necessarily vague standards in this area of the law. In his dissent in San Diego Gas & Electric Co. v. San Diego, 450 U.S. 621 (1981), JUSTICE BRENNAN proposed a brand new constitutional rule. * He argued that a mistake such as the one that a majority of the Court believes that the California Coastal Commission made in this case should automatically give rise to pecuniary liability for a "temporary taking." Id., at 653-661. Notwithstanding the unprecedented chilling effect that such a rule will obviously have on public officials charged with the responsibility for drafting and implementing regulations designed to protect the environment [483 U.S. 825, 867] and the public welfare, six Members of the Court recently endorsed JUSTICE BRENNAN'S novel proposal. See First English Evangelical Lutheran Church, supra. I write today to identify the severe tension between that dramatic development in the law and the view expressed by JUSTICE BRENNAN's dissent in this case that the public interest is served by encouraging state agencies to exercise considerable flexibility in responding to private desires for development in a way that threatens the preservation of public resources. See ante, at 846848. I like the hat that JUSTICE BRENNAN has donned today better than the one he wore in San Diego, and I am persuaded that he has the better of the legal arguments here. Even if his position prevailed in this case, however, it would be of little solace to landuse planners who would still be left guessing about how the Court will react to the next case, and the one after that. As this case demonstrates, the rule of liability created by the Court in First English is a shortsighted one. Like JUSTICE BRENNAN, I hope that "a broader vision ultimately prevails." Ante, at 864. I respectfully dissent. Suppose you were a Supreme Court justice, how would you decide this case? Do you concur or dissent with Justice Scalia? Begins like this: JUSTICE [YOUR NAME], concurring or dissenting. Minimum ½ page single space. This entire discussion is worth 3 points. Nollan v.California Coastal Commission 483 U.S. 825; 107 S.Ct. 2389 (1987) [The Nollans owned a beachfront lot in Ventura County, Califor-nia. They wanted to replace their dilapidated bungalow on their land with a three-bedroom house, and they applied for a permit from the California Coastal Commission. The commission would only grant the permit if the Nollans would dedicate an easement across their land for the public to have greater access to the beach. The Nollans thought this condition was an unlawful taking of their property, which was illegal under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The trial court agreed and issued an order (called a writ of mandamus) removing the dedication and grant-ing the permit. On appeal, the Court of Appeal reversed the lower court and allowed the dedication requirement. The court held that, even though the dedication significantly reduced the value of the Nollan’s property, it did not deprive them of all use of the land. Therefore, the appeals court held the condition did not amount to a taking. The California Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, but the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the case]. SCALIA, JUSTICE. Had California simply required the Nol-lans to make an easement across their beachfront available to the public on a permanent basis in order to increase public access to the beach, rather than conditioning their permit to rebuild their house on their agreeing to do so, we have no doubt there would have been a taking. To say that the appropriation of a public easement across a landowner’s premises does not constitute the taking of a property interest but rather “a mere restriction on its use” is to use words in a manner that deprives them of all their ordinary meaning. Indeed, one of the principal uses of the eminent domain power is to assure that the government be able to require conveyance of just such interests, so long as it pays for them. Perhaps because the point is so obvious, we have never been confronted with a controversy that required us to rule upon it, but our cases’ analysis of the effect of other governmental action leads to the same conclusion. We have repeatedly held that, as to prop-erty reserved by its owner for private use, “the right to exclude [others is] one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property.” We observed that where governmental action results in “a perma-nent physical occupation” of the property, by the government itself or by others, our cases uniformly have found a taking to the extent of the occupation, without regard to whether the action achieves an important public benefit or has only minimal economic impact on the owner. “We think a permanent physical occupation has occurred, for purposes of that rule, where individuals are given a permanent and continuous right to pass to and fro, so that the real property may continuously be traversed, even though no particular individual is permitted to station himself permanently upon the premises.” Given, then, that requiring uncompensated conveyance of the easement outright would violate the Fourteenth Amendment, the question becomes whether requiring it to be conveyed as a condition for issuing a land use permit alters the outcome. We have long recognized that land use regulation does not effect a taking if it “substantially advances legitimate state interests” and does not “deny an owner economically viable use of his land.” However, a use restriction may constitute a “taking” if not reasonably neces-sary to the effectuation of a substantial government purpose. Our cases have not elaborated on the standards for determining what constitutes a “legitimate state interest” or what type of connection between the regulation and the state interest satisfies the require-ment that the former substantially advance the latter. They have made clear, however, that a broad range of governmental purposes and regulations satisfies these requirements. The Commission argues that a permit condition that serves the same legitimate police-power purpose as a refusal to issue the permit Should not be found to be a taking if the refusal to issue the permit would not constitute a taking. We agree. Thus, if the Commission attached to the permit some condition that would have protected the public’s ability to see the beach notwithstanding construction of the new house—for example, a height limitation, a width restric-tion, or a ban on fences—so long as the Commission could have exercised its police power to forbid construction of the house alto-gether, imposition of the condition would also be constitutional. The Commission claims that the condition at issue here is rea-sonably related to the public need or burden that the Nollans’ new house creates or to which it contributes. We can accept, for purposes of discussion, the Commission’s proposed test as to how close a “fit” between the condition and the burden is required, because we find that this case does not meet even the most untai-lored standards. The Commission’s principal contention to the contrary essentially turns on a play on the word “access.” The Nollans’ new house, the Commission found, will interfere with “visual access” to the beach. That in turn (along with other shorefront development) will interfere with the desire of people who drive past the Nollans’ house to use the beach, thus creating a “psychological barrier” to “access.” Rewriting the argument to eliminate the play on words makes clear that there is nothing to it. It is quite impossible to understand how a requirement that people already on the public beaches be able to walk across the Nollans’ property reduces any obstacles to viewing the beach created by the new house. It is also impossible to understand how it lowers any “psychological barrier” to using the public beaches, or how it helps to remedy any additional conges-tion on them caused by construction of the Nollans’ new house. We therefore find that the Commission’s imposition of the permit condition cannot be treated as an exercise of its land use power for any of these purposes. Our conclusion on this point is consistent with the approach taken by every other court that has considered the question, with the exception of the California state courts. The Commission may well be right that it is a good idea, but that does not establish that the Nollans (and other coastal residents) alone can be compelled to contribute to its realization. Rather, California is free to advance its “comprehensive program,” if it wishes, by using its power of eminent domain for this “public pur-pose.” If the Commission wants an easement across the Nollans’ property, it must pay for it"