B004E3WO62 EBOK

by Morton J. Horwitz

  208. Id. at 125.

  209. Id. at 129.

  210. Id. at 128.

  211. O. W. HOLMES, supra note 7, at 8o.

  212. [1898] A.C. 1.

  213. O. W. HOLMES, supra note 138, at 125.

  214. The discussion of spite fences that follows is drawn from Alexandre Kedar, The History of Anglo-American Legal Discourses About Obstruction of Lights 107-175 (unpublished L.L.M. thesis, Harvard Law School 1989).

  215. T. COOLEY, A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF TORTS 688 (1st ed., Callaghan 1879). Chapter XXII was entitled "The Place of Evil Motive in the Law of Torts." Cooley continued: "Any transaction which would be lawful and proper if the parties were friends, cannot be made the foundation of an action merely because they happened to be enemies. As long as a man keeps himself within the law by doing no act which violates it, we must leave his motives to HIM who searches the heart."

  216. Kedar, supra note 214, at 116.

  217. 148 Mass. 368 (1889). The case involved the constitutionality of a Massachusetts statute giving a right of action for spite fences, so Holmes's views on the common law were dicta. Moreover, despite the language in the text, Holmes managed to find a way to uphold the statute.

  218. Id. at 372.

  219. See M. HORWITZ, supra note 28, at 107.

  220. See [Nockelby], Tortious Interference with Contractual Relations in the Nineteenth Century: The Transformation of Property, Contract and Tort, 93 HARV. L. REV. 1510, 1529-39 (1980).

  221. Int'l News Serv. v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215, 246 (1918) (Holmes, J.).

  222. O. W. HOLMES, supra note 4, at 241.

  223. See generally Vandevelde, The New Property of the Nineteenth Century: The Development of the Modern Concept of Property, 29 BUFFALO L. REV. 325 (1980).

  224. See also the evolution of the duty of lateral support of land. In 1850, the New York Supreme Court declared that such a duty "would often deprive men of the whole beneficial use of their property." Such a duty would leave the landowner with "but a nominal right to his property." Radcliff's Ex'rs v. Mayor of Brooklyn, 4 N.Y. 195, 203 (1850). The refusal to extend correlative rights to the law governing waters percolating in subterranean channels was also explained in the language of absolute property rights. In the Pennsylvania case of Wheatley v. Baugh, 25 Pa. 528 (1855), the court insisted that to apply the riparian doctrine of reciprocal rights to percolating streams "would amount to a total abrogation of the right to property." Id. at 532. The New York Supreme Court declined to apply reciprocal rights to sub-surface streams, in 1855 declaring "the rule that a man has a right to the free and absolute use of his property unless he caused direct injury." Ellis v. Duncan, 21 Barb. 230, 235 (N.Y. App. Div. 1855).

  225. See generally [Nockelby], supra note 220, at 1510; Vandevelde, supra note 223; Cohen, Property and Sovereignty, 13 CORNELL L.Q. 8 (1927); Singer, supra note 149. See the discussion of rights in chapter 5, infra text accompanying notes 77-96.

  226. O. W. HOLMES, supra note 4, at 173.

  227. Id. at 172.

  228. Id. at 173.

  229. Id. at 18o.

  230. Id. at 181.

  231. See G. GILMORE, THE DEATH OF CONTRACT 143, n.256 (Ohio State Univ. Press 1974); Horwitz, book review, 42 U. CHI. L. REV. 787, 796 (1975) (reviewing C. GILMORE, supra); Gordon, supra note 6, at 727.

  232. O. W. HOLMES, supra note 4, at 194-95.

  233. Id. at 195-

  234. Id. at 186-87.

  235. Id. at 182.

  236. Id. at 195.

  237. James, Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results, U. CHRONICLE, September 1898 (a lecture delivered before the Philosophical Union at Berkeley, California, in 1898), reprinted in W. JAMES, COLLECTED ESSAYS AND REVIEWS 406 (R. Perry ed., Longmans, Green 1920).

  238. See D. Ross, THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN SOCIAL SCIENCE 165 (Cambridge Univ. Press 1990). See also B. KUKLICK, CHURCHMEN AND PHILOSOPHERS: FROM JONATHAN EDWARDS TO JOHN DEWEY 241-49 (Yale Univ. Press 1985).

  239. See M. WHITE, SOCIAL THOUGHT IN AMERICA: THE REVOLT AGAINST FORMALISM (rev. ed., Beacon Press 1957); R. SUMMERS, INSTRUMENTALISM AND AMERICAN LEGAL THEORY (Cornell Univ. Press 1982).

  240. See B. KUKLICK, supra note 238, at 218-29.

  241. 198 U.S. 45 (1905)•

  242. See, e.g., A BENTLEY, THE PROCESS OF GOVERNMENT (1st ed., Principia Press 1908).

  Chapter 5

  1. See Vandevelde, The New Property of the Nineteenth Century: The Development of the Modem Concept of Property, 29 BUFFALO L. REV. 325 (1980).

  2. 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 127 (1872).

  3. J. COMMONS, LEGAL FOUNDATIONS OF CAPITALISM 14 (Macmillan 1924).

  4. 94 U.S. 113 (1876).

  5. Id. at 143.

  6. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. v. Minnesota, 134 U.S. 418 (189o).

  7. 1. COMMONS, supra note 3, at 16 (emphasis retained).

  8. See M. HORWITZ, THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN LAW, 1780-1860, at 7174, 132 (Harvard Univ. Press 1977).

  9. See id. at 74-80, 132.

  10. J. LEWIS, A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF EMINENT DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES I (Collaghan 1888).

  11. Id.

  12. Id.

  13. Id. at 41, 43.

  14. Old Colony & F.R.R.R, v. County of Plymouth, 8o Mass. (14 Gray) 155, 161 (1859).

  15. J. LEWIS, supra note so, at 45.

  16. Id.

  17. T. SEDGWICK, A TREATISE ON THE RULES WHICH GOVERN THE INTERPRETATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF STATUTORY AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 456-57 (2d ed., Baker, Voorhis 1874).

  18. Id. at 462-63.

  19. J. LEWIS, supra note lo, at 46.

  20. 51 N.H. 504 (1872).

  21. Id. at 511.

  22. Id. (citations omitted).

  23. Thompson v. Androscoggin River Improvement Co., 54 N.H. 545, 552 (1874).

  24. Id.

  25. 8o U.S. (13 Wall.) 166 (1871).

  26. Id. at 177-78.

  27. After Pumpelly, there were two lines of Supreme Court cases. Transportation Co. v. Chicago, 99 U.S. 635, 642 (1878) tried to limit Pumpelly by characterizing it as "the extremist qualification" of the traditional doctrine that consequential damages are noncompensable. See also Mugler v. Kansas, Iz3 U.S. 623, 667, 668 (1887). But Pumpelly is favorably cited in Louisiana ex rel. Folsom v. New Orleans, 109 U.S. 285, 295-96 (1883); Chicago v. Taylor, 125 U.S. 161, 162-63 (1888); Pennsylvania R.R. v. Miller, 132 U.S. 75, 81 (1889); United States v. Alexander, 148 U.S. 181, 191-92 (1893); Monongahela Navigation Co. v. U.S., 148 U.S. 312 (1893). For the significance of Monongahela Navigation, see Commons, supra note 3, at 182-86.

  28. See J. LEWIS, supra note 10, at 46.

  29. Siegel, Understanding the Lochner Era: Lessons from the Controversy Over Railroad and Utility Rate Regulation, 70 VA. L. REV. 187, 243-47 (1984).

  30. 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386 (1798).

  31. Id. at 400.

  32. B. WRIGHT, THE CONTRACT CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION 27-61 (Harvard Univ. Press 1938).

  33. See T. COOLEY, A TREATISE ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS WHICH REST UPON THE LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THE STATES OF THE AMERICAN UNION 438-76 (5th ed., Little, Brown 1883).

  34. 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 213 (1827).

  35• See Sturges v. Crowninshield, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 1z2. (181q).

  36. 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) at 344-45.

  37. In Barron v. Mayor of Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243 (1833), the Supreme Court held that the Fifth Amendment's just compensation clause-and the Bill of Rights generally-did not serve as a limitation on the states. This changed after the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment. Before the Civil War, therefore, the contracts clause often served as the closest functional equivalent to a takings clause.

  38. See Grey, The Disintegration of Property, in PROPERTY: NoMOS XXII 69 (J. Pennock & J. Chapman eds., New York Univ. Press 1980).

  39. Hohfeld, Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, 23 YALE L.J. 16, 30 (1913).

  40. Kennedy & Michelman, Are Property and Contract Efficient?, 8 H
OFsTRA L. REV. 711, 751-52 (1980).

  41. Hollfeld, A Vital School of Jurisprudence and Law: Have American Universities Awakened to the Enlarged Opportunities and Responsibilities of the Present Day? 1914 A. AM. L. SCH. PROC. 76.

  42. Id. at 76, 79.

  43. Id. at 96, 98.

  44. Id. at 102.

  45. Id. at ioi.

  46. See Singer, The Legal Rights Debate in Analytical Jurisprudence from Bentham to Hohfeld, 1982 Wis. L. REV. 975.

  47. See id. at 1050 n. 2 10.

  48. J. AUSTIN, LECTURES ON JURISPRUDENCE (3 vols., J. Murray 1863).

  49• Hart, Introduction to J. AUSTIN, THE PROVINCE OF JURISPRUDENCE at viii (H. L. A. Hart ed., Noonday Press 1954).

  50. Id. at xvi.

  51. 2 J. AUSTIN, supra note 48, at 61.

  52. Id. at 66 (emphasis retained).

  53. See J. BENTHAM, A COMMENT ON THE COMMENTARIES AND A FRAGMENT ON GOVERNMENT (J. Burns & H. Hart eds., Humanities Press 1977).

  54, J. BENTHAM, Anarchical Fallacies: Being an Examination of the Declarations of Rights Issued During the French Revolution, in z WORKS 489 (J. Bowring ed., W. Tait 1843).

  55. See E. HALEVY, THE GROWTH OF PHILOSOPHIC RADICALISM 76-81 (Macmillan 1928).

  56. See J. BENTHAM, supra note 54.

  57. See Touster, In Search of Holmes from Within, 18 VAND. L. REV. 437 (1965), and discussion supra ch. 4.

  58. Holmes, Codes, and the Arrangement of the Law, 5 AM. L. REV. 1, 3 (1870).

  59. See supra text accompanying notes 38-47•

  6o. See Vandevelde, supra note 1.

  61. See Hurvitz, American Labor Law and the Doctrine of Entrepreneurial Property Rights: Boycotts, Courts, and the Juridical Reorientation of 1886-1895, 8 INDUS. REL. L.J. 307 (1986).

  62. See Forbath, The Ambiguities of Free Labor: Labor and the Law in the Gilded Age, 1985 Wis. L. REV. 767; Hattam, Worktrs as Conspirators: Judicial Regulation of Labor Under the Common Law Doctrine of Criminal Conspiracy, in LABOR LAW IN AMERICA: HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ESSAYS (C. Tomlins & A. J. King eds., Johns Hopkins Univ. Press forthcoming).

  63. Boomer v. Atlantic Cement, 26 N.Y.2d 219, 257 N.E.2d 870, 309 N.Y.S.2d 312 (1970), gave courts discretion in granting injunctions against nuisances. It overruled Whalen v. Union Bag & Paper Co., 208 N.Y. 1, 101 N.E. 805 (1913), which held that such injunctions were not discretionary. The Whalen rule seems to have derived from the desire of the New York Court of Appeals to show that labor injunctions were not discretionary. Therefore, it created a general rule that if a nuisance were found, an injunction followed as a matter of course. Cf. Halper, Nuisance, Courts and Market in the New York Court of Appeals, 1850-1915, 54 AI.». L. REV. 301 (1990).

  64. 167 Mass. 92, 44 N.E. 1077 (1896).

  65. Holmes, Privilege, Malice, and Intent, 8 HARV. L. REV. 1 (1894).

  66. See supra ch. 4.

  67. See id.

  68. Even Holmes was susceptible to such a view. In Davis v. Massachusetts, 162 Mass. 510, 511, 39 N.E. 113, 113 (1895), he upheld restrictions on an open air speaker as follows: "For the legislature absolutely or conditionally to forbid public speaking in a highway or public park is no more an infringement of the rights of a member of the public than for the owner of a private house to forbid it in his house."

  69. In JUSTICE ACCUSED: ANTISLAVERY AND THE JUDICIAL PROCESS (Yale Univ. Press 1975), Robert M. Cover showed how antebellum judges who believed slavery was contrary to natural right nevertheless did not go behind positive law to follow their beliefs. They preserved a distinction between positive law and political philosophy. Stanley N. Katz made a similar argument about a different property relation in Republicanism and the Law of Inheritance in the Revolutionary Era, 76 MICH. L. REV. 1, 6 (1977). He emphasized "the mainstream . . . tradition . . . clearly marked by the positivist spirit of Blackstone and the theorists of legislative sovereignty" which made Nunnemacher v. State, 129 Wis. 19o, 202-03, io8 N.W. 627, 630 (1906), "an isolated moment in the history of American jurisprudence." In that case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that "the right to demand that property pass by inheritance or will is an inherent right subject only to reasonable regulation by the Legislature." See further discussion infra text accompanying note 92.

  70. Kennedy & Michelman, supra note 40, at 752-53.

  71. Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. Mitchall, 245 U.S. 229 (1917).

  72. Cook, Privileges of Labor Unions in the Struggle for Life, 27 YALE L.J. 779 (1918).

  73. Id. at 790.

  74. See Vandevelde, supra note 1, at 359-62.

  75. Corbin, Taxation of Seats on the Stock Exchange, 31 YALE L.). 429, 429 (1922). See also Grey, supra note 38, at 79.

  76. Vandevelde, supra note 1, at 361.

  77. See C. HAINES, THE REVIVAL OF NATURAL LAW CONCEPTS (Harvard Univ. Press 1930); E. CORWIN, THE "HIGHER LAW" BACKGROUND OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Great Seal Books 1955) (originally published in 42 HARV. L. REV. 149, 365 (1928-29)); B. WRIGHT, AMERICAN INTERPRETATIONS OF NATURAL LAW (Harvard Univ. Press 1931).

  78. See S. FINE, LAISSEZ FAIRE AND THE GENERAL-WELFARE STATE 126-64 (Univ. of Michigan Press 1956); C. JACOBS, LAW WRITERS AND THE COURTS 85-93 (Univ. of California Press 1954); A. PAUL, CONSERVATIVE CRISIS AND THE RULE OF LAW: ATTITUDES OF BAR AND BENCH, 1887-1895, at 209-21 (Cornell Univ. Press 1960); B. Twlss, LAWYERS AND THE CONSTITUTION (Princeton Univ. Press 1942).

  79. See C. BECKER, THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 24-79 (Harcourt, Brace 1922).

  8o. See O. GIERKE, NATURAL LAW AND THE THEORY OF SOCIETY (2 vols., E. Barker trans., Cambridge Univ. Press 1934); A. P. D'ENTREVES, NATURAL LAW (Hutchinson's Univ. Library 1951).

  81. See J. GOUGH, FUNDAMENTAL LAW IN ENGLISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY (Clarendon Press 1955).

  82. See I. SHAPIRO, THE EVOLUTION OF RIGHTS IN LIBERAL THEORY (Cambridge Univ. Press 1986); J. FINNIS, NATURAL LAW AND NATURAL RIGHTS (Oxford Univ. Press 1g8o); C. B. MACPHERSON, THE POLITICAL THEORY OF POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALISM (Oxford Univ. Press 1962); M. KAMMEN, A MACHINE THAT WOULD Go OF ITSELF: THE CONSTITUTION IN AMERICAN CULTURE (Knopf 1986).

  83. See B. BAILYN, IDEOLOGICAL ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 175-98 (Harvard Univ. Press 1967).

  84. See G. WILLS, INVENTING AMERICA 93-110 (Doubleday 1978).

  85. 3 U.S. (3 Dail.) 386 (1798). See Grey, Do We Have an Unwritten Constitution? 27 STAN. L. REV. 703 (1975).

  86. See Corwin, The Basic Doctrine of American Constitutional Law, 12 MICH. L. REV. 247 (1914).

  87. See supra ch. I.

  88. 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819).

  89. See supra ch. z.

  9o. See infra ch. 7.

  91. R. COVER, supra note 69, at 1zo-z1 (quoting State v. Hoppess, 2 W.L.J. 279, 285 (Ohio 1845), reprinted in 1o Ohio Dec. Reprint 105, 110-11 (1896)).

  92. Id. at 34.

  93. C. TIEDEMAN, A TREATISE ON THE LIMITATIONS OF THE POLICE POWER IN THE UNITED STATES (F. H. Thomas 1886). See sources cited supra note 78.

  94• Id. at 7-

  95. Id. at 10.

  96. T. COOLEY, A TREATISE ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS WHICH REST UPON THE LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THE STATES OF THE AMERICAN UNION 232-33 (7th ed., Little, Brown 1903).

  97. 169 U.S. 466 (1898).

  98. Henderson, Railway Valuation and the Courts, 33 HARV. L. REV. 902, 913 (1920).

  99. Siegel, supra note 29, at 227.

  100. McCardle v. Indianapolis Water Co., 272 U.S. 400 (1926).

  1o1. Siegel, supra note 29, at 233-34.

  102. See infra text accompanying notes 106-127; Siegel, supra note 29, at 247-50; Peller, The Metaphysics of American Law, 73 CALIF. L. REV. 1151, 1227-39 (1985).

  103. Henderson, supra note 98, at 906.

  104. Ruggles v. Illinois, 108 U.S. 526 (1883).

  105. Cotting v. Kansas City Stock Yards Co., 183 U.S. 79, 94 (1901)•

  1o6. Richberg, Value-By Judicial Fiat, 4o HARV. L. REV. 567 (1927).

  107. Id. at 578.

  108. Id. at 576.

  109. Id. at 580.

/>   110. Cohen, Property and Sovereignty, 13 CORNELL L.Q. 8 (1927).

  111. Henderson, supra note 98.

  112. Id. at 910.

  113. Id. at 912.

  114. Id. at 910.

  115. J. COMMONS, supra note 3, at z5.

  116. Id. at 196.

  117. Id.

  118. Henderson, supra note 98.

  119. Id. at 917. Robert L. Hale should perhaps be given credit for first seeing the relationship between present value and future income. The Supreme Court's Ambiguous Use of "Value" in Rate Cases, 18 COLUM. L. REV. 208, 210-11 (1918). While his article is quite dense and does not highlight the circularity issue, I would suppose that Henderson was stimulated by it.

  This point soon became a standard observation in the literature or rate making. "What . . . is meant by present value?" James C. Bonbright asked in 1927. "[I]f we measure . . . worth by [property's] market value as a going concern, we are involved in that hopeless vicious circle of basing rates on a value which in turn depends on the rates. "'Depreciation and Valuation for Rate Control, 27 COLUM. L. REV. 113, 122 (1927). Bonbright was to become the leading authority on rate setting.

  120. Hale, Rate Making and the Revision of the Property Concept, 22 COLUM. L. REV. 209 (1922).

  121. Id. at 212.

  122. Id. at 213.

  123. Id. at 214.

  124. Cohen, supra note 11o.

  125. Hale, Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State, 38 PoL. Sci. REV. 470 (1923). See discussion infra ch. 7.

  126. Hale, supra note lzo, at 214.

  127. Id. at 214-15.

  128. Cohen, supra note I io.

  129. Id. at 8.

  130. Id. at 12.

  131. Id. at 23-24.

  132. Id. at 24.

  133. Id. at 12.

  134. R. ELY, STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 405 (Macmillan 1903).

  13 5. Id. at 406.

  136. A BERLE AND C. MEANS, THE MODERN CORPORATION AND PRIVATE PROPERTY 333-39 (Commerce Clearing House, 1932).

  137. Id. at 340.

  Chapter 6

  i. Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).

  z. See infra ch. 8.

  3. See Friedman & Ladinsky, Social Change and the Law of Industrial Accidents, 67 COLUM. L. REV. 50 (1967); J. WEINSTEIN, THE CORPORATE IDEAL IN THE LIBERAL STATE, 190o-1918, at 40-61 (Beacon Press 1968).