Keeble v. Hickeringill

[sknight323]

If this case is supposed to establish that you have constructive possession of wild animals on your land, why didn't the court find for the loss of the ducks, and instead only found on a tort theory?

[johansantana21]

Curious on this as well. I thought it didn't establish ratione soli but only established a right against malicious interference?

[bceagles182]

From my outline last year. No idea if it's right but got an A in the class. I don't recall the case being that important in terms of modern property law.

- Intentional Interference with Trade (tort): A person is liable to another if he maliciously hinders his trade (Keeble v. Hickeringill)
o Maliciously: Intentionally doing something for the sole purpose of harming another without creating value
 If no benefit to actor  court will infer that D is doing it solely to harm P
 If actor benefits tough to show D was doing it for the sole purpose of harming P

[bdubs]

This case actually makes very little sense and I have no idea why property books start out with it.

I spoke with my professor about it and he said that the reason why it is so weird is because of the writ that was brought under. The finding in the case actually makes much more sense under a nuisance theory, but they essentially found that Keeble had a property interest in his livelihood which was only enforceable against others in cases of malicious intent.

[crossarmant]

My understanding of it is that while you do have constructive possession of wild animals on your property, this was not the case where D captured the ducks, rather he interfered with P's business of capturing those ducks for malicious purposes. I think it just addressed the whole constructive possession idea, but the result is a non-sequitor.

[camelcrema]

Trying to remember this from last semester, but I believe my understanding was close to crossarmant's. Our professor was a big proponent of the "bundle of sticks" theory of ownership, and this case was supposed to illustrate that the bundle of sticks can serve a policy interest. In this case, the policy being served was to maximize the number of ducks killed. In furthering that, P had the right to hunt ducks for trade, and D had the right to compete with him for those ducks. However, if D was interfering with P in a way that prevented the killing of ducks, then D was violating P's property interests.

He gave another good example of this theory with geese. The government was trying to let the geese breed and keep as many alive as possible. When a goose died of natural causes, the landowner on whose land the goose died was not allowed to keep it (as this would encourage landowners to kill geese and claim they died of natural causes) and the government took possession of the goose corpse it owned. However, when the geese damaged a landowner's fence or farm, he could not sue the government to recover it (because for that purpose, the government did not own the geese). The bundle of rights that the government had over the geese included the right to their bodies, but not the liability of paying for damage caused by them; this arrangement served the desirable policy of having more geese breed.

[sknight323]

My understanding of it is that while you do have constructive possession of wild animals on your property, this was not the case where D captured the ducks, rather he interfered with P's business of capturing those ducks for malicious purposes. I think it just addressed the whole constructive possession idea, but the result is a non-sequitor.

Thanks. So basically, if you cause someone to lose constructive possession of something, it isn't like you can be sued for them losing their property? But that constructive possession leads to them interfering with your trade, which is just malicious interference (a tort). So basically, the constructive possession idea here just protects the malicious interference tort?



This is such a mind-numbingly stupid case.

[Bildungsroman]

Just look at the justification for Keeble given in Pierson v. Post, dooder. Even though the known reporter of the former didn't mention ratione soli as a deciding factor of the case, the court in Pierson had to make up something to get their result to comport with the doctrine, so they just lied about the doctrine. hth