[meteorite-list] Who owns the meteorite?

Wed Sep 22 18:31:16 EDT 2010

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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