Document Type
Response or Comment
Publication Date
8-13-2014
Abstract
In an article recently published in the Yale Law Journal, Larissa Katz defends a heterodox principle of abuse of property right pursuant to which an owner abuses her rights with respect to a thing she owns if she makes an otherwise permitted decision about how to use that thing just in order to harm others, either out of spite, or for leverage. Katz grounds that principle in a novel theory of the political foundations of the institution of property ownership. This essay argues that Katz’s political theory is implausible, but that this should not doom her preferred principle of abuse of property right. Further, the essay bolsters Katz’s abuse principle by showing how it, or close analogues, helps resolve both the paradox of blackmail and the puzzle of unconstitutional conditions.
Keywords
property, ownership, principle of abuse of property right, no-intent-to-harm principle, worthwhile-uses-only principle, spite, malice, nuisance, trespass, blackmail, Larissa Katz
Publication Title
Yale Law Journal Forum
Repository Citation
Berman, Mitchell N., "Abuse of Property Right Without Political Foundations: A Response to Katz" (2014). All Faculty Scholarship. 1452.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/1452
Included in
Criminal Law Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Law and Philosophy Commons, Legal Theory Commons, Other Philosophy Commons, Property Law and Real Estate Commons, Public Law and Legal Theory Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons
Publication Citation
124 Yale L.J. Forum 42 (2014).