What is "Property"?

Map Branches

• Tom Merrill's Taxonomy
  • Consensus points
    • Right not a thing
    • Tangible or intangible
    • Various systems
      • Private
      • Public
      • Common
        • Open
        • Limited
    • More than possession
    • Institutional structures
  • Single variable essentialism
    • Merrill's "right to exclude"
    • Blackstone's "sole & despotic dominion"
    • Cohen's "dialogue"
  • Multiple variable essentialism
    • Blackstone's "trilogy"
    • Honore's "standard incidents"
    • USSC's "possess/use/dispose"
  • Nominalism /realism
    • Legal realists' scepticism
    • Hohfeld's "jural relations"
    • Grey's "disintegration"
  • Conceptions of concept
    • Individual, group or state
    • Public or private law processes
    • Tangible or intangible resources
• Yanner v. Eaton 1999, H.C.A.
  • Facts & Context
    • Yanner (Gangalidda) hunted crocs
    • Fauna Act, s. 54(1)(a)
    • Native Title Act, s. 211
    • Mabo's Case 1992, H.C.A.
    • Fauna Act, s. 7
      • What does "property" mean?
  • Gleeson CJ (majority)
    • Concept is "elusive"
      • "primarily control over access"
    • "Property" ≠ full ownership
    • "Property" =
      • "fiction in legal shorthand"
      • "aggregate of rights of control"
    • Therefore, Yanner's native rights not extinguished
  • McHugh J (dissent)
    • "Property" =
      • "catching, killing, appropriating"
      • "excluding other people from ..."
      • "owner ... to exclusion of all others"
    • Language is clear
      • "Property" not a movie set
    • Therefore, statute overrules common law native right

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