[meteorite-list] Who owns the meteorite?

From: Meteorites USA <eric_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:31:16 -0700
Message-ID: <4C9A83B4.7090709_at_meteoritesusa.com>

Regarding the article, that is the argument yes.

Eric


On 9/22/2010 2:47 PM, R N Hartman wrote:
> So regarding the article, in essence this interpretation is saying
> that if you have a lease on land at which time a meteorite lands on
> it, you have legal rights to it. But you must have the lease, not be
> wandering down a public road or across a school yard, or even being on
> a dry lake or the open desert. Yes??
>
> Ron Hartman
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thunder Stone"
> <stanleygregr at hotmail.com>
> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 2:11 PM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Who owns the meteorite?
>
>
>>
>> I found this interesting.
>>
>> I apologize if it has already been posted.
>>
>> Greg S.
>>
>> http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202446510671&Who_owns_the_meteorite&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1&loginloop=o
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Who owns the meteorite?
>>
>> In the dispute over the one that landed in a Lorton, Va., medical
>> office earlier this year, the tenants should win.
>>
>> Andrea J. Boyack
>>
>> March 22, 2010
>>
>> On Jan. 18 at 5:45 p.m., a meteorite crashed through the ceiling of a
>> medical office in Lorton, Va. It damaged the building and interior
>> finishings but hurt no one. The meteorite's fall from space is over,
>> but the earthly battle over its ownership has just begun. This, in a
>> circumstance of pure kismet, was a mere 90 minutes after I had
>> wrapped up a lesson in my property law course discussing meteorite
>> ownership disputes, among other things.
>>
>> "It's evident that ownership is tied to the landowner," asserted one
>> of the landlords. The tenant doctors, by publicizing their intent to
>> donate the meteorite to the Smithsonian and any proceeds to Haitian
>> earthquake relief, have likely won the public relations battle in the
>> court of public opinion. But who should win title in a court of law?
>>
>> Centuries-old common law allocates original ownership of unowned
>> things based on first possession. First possession by a person,
>> illustrated by the ubiquitous case of Pierson v. Post, 3 Cai. R. 175
>> (N.Y. 1805), holds that ownership to an unowned "wild thing" vests in
>> the hunter at the moment of actual possession (capture), at least if
>> such capture occurs on "unpossessed land." The ownership analysis
>> becomes more complicated when capture occurs on private property,
>> because allocation of ownership then turns on whether actual
>> possession vests the captor with ownership or whether the thing is
>> ineligible for capture because its mere presence on the land has made
>> it constructively possessed by the landowner.
>>
>> Constructive-possession analysis is not required in cases involving
>> trespass: The law clearly prohibits trespassers from claiming
>> ownership through capture. The asserted rule that a meteorite is
>> property of the landowner actually comes from Oregon Iron Co. v.
>> Hughes, 81 P. 572 (Ore. 1905), a case in which the other title
>> claimant was a trespassing meteorite-hunter. The rule in that case is
>> unsurprising, but irrelevant here: The Lorton doctors lawfully
>> possess the premises where they found the meteorite.
>>
>> The law finds constructive possession by a landowner of previously
>> unowned objects appearing on his land in three types of ways. First,
>> we define real property to include all natural objects growing out of
>> or under the land. Second, the doctrine of ratione soli (by reason of
>> the soil) establishes a landowner's first-in-time claim for some
>> situate natural objects (e.g., beehives, beavers and nesting birds)
>> which are deemed "possessed" by the land itself. Third, under the
>> doctrine of fixtures, if a once-movable object becomes attached to
>> realty to such an extent that it becomes physically a part of it,
>> then such object ceases to be separately owned personalty and becomes
>> a part of the real estate to which it is affixed. The doctrine of
>> fixtures sometimes appears in landlord-tenant disputes because a
>> tenant may not remove or transfer title to a fixture without the
>> landlord's consent.
>>
>> Is a meteorite adequately attached to the real property so as to be
>> part of the soil or a fixture? In one case, Goddard v. Winchell, 52
>> N.W. 1124 (Iowa 1892), the court said yes. In that case, an ownership
>> dispute arose after a large meteorite fell onto prairie land in
>> Forest City, Iowa, embedding itself three feet into the ground. The
>> "grass rights" tenant sold the meteorite to a collector, and the
>> landlord claimed title. The court held that, since the meteorite in
>> question had been found below the surface of the ground, it had in
>> effect become part of the realty. And since fixtures cannot be
>> removed unilaterally by tenants, ownership of the meteorite was
>> awarded to the landlord. The court reasoned, "It was not a movable
>> thing 'on the ground.' It was in the earth, and in a very significant
>> sense, immovable." Although the Forest City meteorite was embedded in
>> the soil, the Lorton meteorite was not affixed to the realty in any way.
>>
>> Even if a court found that the "property owner" should always have
>> constructive possession of meteorites on its land, this does not end
>> the title inquiry here. The concept of "property owner" is more
>> complicated than many people recognize because ownership interests in
>> land can be split among multiple owners. Title to real property can
>> be shared temporally (e.g., between a life tenant and the holder of
>> the remainder interest) and concurrently (e.g., among multiple
>> tenants in common). In addition, a lease grants the tenant a current
>> possessory ownership estate in the leased property.
>>
>> Since the "ownership" of real property during a lease term is
>> actually shared by landlord and tenant, merely granting that
>> something belongs to the "owner" of real property does not indicate
>> whether it has vested in the tenant or the landlord. Since the tenant
>> is in exclusive possession during the lease term, even with respect
>> to the landlord, constructive possession (if it applies at all)
>> should logically vest ownership in the tenant. The rights of the
>> tenant to the leased real property, including any fixtures, ends at
>> lease termination. But unlike the Forest City meteorite, the Lorton
>> meteorite never became affixed to the realty, so that limitation does
>> not apply.
>>
>> There is another historic meteorite landing that led to a
>> landlord-tenant property rights dispute. In 1954, a meteorite crashed
>> through the roof of a rented home in Sylacauga, Ala., striking the
>> tenant, Ann Hodges. She claimed ownership, as did her landlord. In
>> this, the only documented case of a human being hit by a meteorite,
>> the parties settled out of court. We thus have no judicial opinion
>> resolving landlord versus tenant meteorite title, at least with
>> respect to meteorites not embedded into the ground.
>>
>> A meteorite lying on the floor of a doctor's office is clearly not a
>> fixture. Finding constructive possession due to ratione soli of a
>> product that indubitably fell from outer space stretches credulity.
>> The Lorton doctors were not trespassers; they were not acting as
>> landlord's agents; the property was not landlord's private residence.
>> The doctors' mere act of taking actual possession of the meteorite in
>> this case therefore likely gives them first finder's rights to it.
>> And even if by some strained reasoning a court would find that the
>> "property owner" always has prior constructive possession of
>> meteorites found on its property, the tenant, as holder of the
>> possessory estate, is the current "property owner" here.
>>
>> Both law and logic favor the tenants. The doctors were "first in
>> time," both through constructive possession, as holder of the
>> possessory estate, and actual possession, through capture of the
>> meteorite. Meteorite ownership therefore has vested in them,
>> regardless of which possession principle applies.
>>
>> This is not just the right answer from a moral or public opinion
>> standpoint; it is the inescapable legal conclusion as well.
>>
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Received on Wed 22 Sep 2010 06:31:16 PM PDT