Keeping It Private: The Impossibility to Abandon Ownership and the horror vacui of the Common Law of Property

English Abstract: In the common law of property, it is generally impossible to abandon one’s ownership. This paper explores the impossibility. It shows that owners cannot abandon land and chattels, let alone have a legal right to do so. It then puts forth an account of the common law’s restrictive attitude towards abandonment. I demonstrate that and how this attitude can only be fully understood in light of the common law’s conception of ownership. This is so because the fear that motivates the restrictions on abandonment, the common law of property’s horror vacui, is a fear of the absence of common law ownership in its specific normative significance. Crucial features that characterize common law ownership and that shape the legal rules on abandonment are 1) its monism, 2) its grounding in a private-ownership paradigm, as well as 3) its assignment of proprietary responsibility exclusively to owners. Owing to these features, recourse to a model of ‘public ownership of last resort’ to appease the horror, and as adopted in France and Quebec’s civil law, is barred. The common law’s only possibility to appease the horror is to ensure that ownable things are kept in private hands as long as possible—the common law must “keep it private”. An account that identifies the legal rules on abandonment as catering to the common law’s urge to “keep it private” comprehensively captures the entirety of the doctrine. It shows why it can be warranted to oblige owners to continue to assume their proprietary responsibility. French Abstract: En droit des biens de common law, il est generalement impossible d’abandonner sa propriete. Cet article explore cette impossibilite. Il souligne que ni meubles ni immeubles peuvent etre abandonnees, et encore moins qu’il y ait un droit de le faire. L’article propose un nouveau cadre theorique pour expliquer l’attitude restrictive de la common law relativement a l’abandon. Il demontre que cette attitude ne peut etre comprise qu’en considerant la conception de ownership qui anime la common law. Il en est ainsi car la peur qui motive les restrictions a l’abandon, l’horror vacui de la common law, est une peur de l’absence de ownership et de sa portee normative particuliere. Les regles juridiques sur l’abandon sont faconnees par trois elements cruciaux qui demarquent ownership, a savoir 1) son monisme, 2) son fondement dans un paradigme de propriete privee ainsi que 3) l’attribution d’une responsabilite specifiquement proprietaire exclusivement aux proprietaires. Compte tenu de ces caracteristiques, la voie vers un modele de ‘propriete publique de dernier recours’, comme celui adopte en France et au Quebec, reste fermee. Par consequent, la seule possibilite pour la common law de calmer l’horreur est que « ca reste prive », c’est-a-dire que les biens soient maintenus entre mains privees le plus longtemps possible. Cette theorie qui met l’accent sur la volonte de la common law de « garder ca prive » rend mieux compte de l’ensemble des regles doctrinales. Elle montre aussi les raisons pour lesquelles on peut demander aux proprietaires de continuer d’assumer leur responsabilite propre.

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