Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2007
Publication Information
156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 279 (2007)
Abstract
My family's story will be familiar to those who have read Eduardo Pefialver and Sonia Katyal's engaging article, Property Outlaws. Robert Fowler was, according to their taxonomy, an "[a]cquisitive outlaw[]": he was a trespasser whose actions were "oriented primarily toward direct appropriation." Pefialver and Katyal contrast the self-interested acquisitive outlaw with the other-regarding "[e]xpressive out law[]," who trespasses as a form of conscientious objection, and the "intersectional outlaw[]," whose actions commingle acquisitive and expressive elements. According to Pefialver and Katyal, property outlaws are underappreciated because, in appropriate circumstances, they serve both "redistributive" and "informational" functions. That is, property outlaws both catalyze "efficient or justified forced transfers of entitlements" and "draw[] attention to the need for reform." My reflection on Property Outlaws focuses on two of the article's animating assumptions about property and property laws. Most of my Response challenges Pefialver and Katyal's repeated assertion that acquisitive outlaws serve a valuable destabilizing function. The closing paragraphs of my Response question their characterization.
Recommended Citation
Nicole S. Garnett,
Property In-Laws,
156 U. Pa. L. Rev. PENNumbra 279 (2007).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/822
Comments
Reprinted with permission of University of Pennsylvania Law Review PENNumbra.