Present Property: PowerPoint is Effective in Class Tool
by
Robert H. Kelley

What property law professor wouldn't like to be able to go to the shelf and pull out a pre-packaged, four-hour summary lecture complete with overhead slides, speaker notes, and student handouts, on the most challenging topics of the course? This Microsoft® PowerPoint™ presentation can be used as either an introduction to or a review of estates in land and future interests.

The presentation covers four main topics: A, present estates in land (20 PowerPoint slides); B, concurrent ownership (9 slides); C, future interests (34 slides); and D, the three versions of the rule against perpetuities (7 slides). The lecture includes detailed coverage of the seven main rules for creating, ending, or transferring legal freehold future interests. The first six rules, which have common law origins, are: (1) that shifting executory interests are not allowed; (2) that springing executory interests are not allowed; (3) that contingent remainders are destructible; (4) merger; (5) the rule in Shelley's case; and (6) the doctrine of worthier title. The seventh rule is the rule against perpetuities.

Authors of property law texts and study aids often interchangeably use terms (e.g., expiration and termination) that describe the ending of estates. This practice can create confusion in the minds of students. My presentation should reduce such confusion by setting boundaries on the use of terms related to the ending of estates.

For example, a determinable life estate ("to A for life so long as A lives on the land") can be defined or described as having two possible natural expirations -- one when A dies, the other when A moves off of the land. However, I describe all types of life estates as having only one possibly natural expiration -- the death of the measuring life. If and when the conditional limitation occurs in this example (i.e., if and when A moves off of the land), I describe A's estate as having been terminated at a point in time that occurs sooner than the natural expiration of A's estate. I believe that, among other things, such a description makes it easier for students to understand the differences between possibilities of reverter, rights of entry, and shifting executory interests.

During the presentation I adopt, explain, and use the following terminology, which focuses on the differences between the various methods by which property rights may cease to exist:

I. Present estates may end: (1) by natural expiration (or expiration); (2) by termination (or by being "cut short"), which occurs sooner than natural expiration; or (3) by merger, which occurs sooner than natural expiration.

II. Future interests may end: (4) by failure; (5) by destruction; (6) by complete divestment (or complete defeasance); or (7) by being rendered void or void ab initio.

The lecture comes on a single 3.5-inch, 1.44 MB floppy disk and may be run, as is, directly on a PC compatible laptop computer. The slides also may be printed on transparencies and shown using an overhead projector. The disk contains the lecture in four different formats: PowerPoint 97, PowerPoint 95, PowerPoint 4.0, and PowerPoint 3.0. The slides and speaker notes are fully editable, and the slides, speaker notes, and student handouts can be printed separately.

If you would like a copy of ESTATES IN LAND AND FUTURE INTERESTS MADE EASY WITH POWERPOINT™, contact the Institute for Law School Teaching at Box 3528, Spokane, WA 99220-3528, phone (509) 323-3740, or e-mail pprather [at] lawschool.gonzaga.edu