Maurer School of Law: Indiana University Digital Repository @ Maurer Law Articles by Maurer Faculty Faculty Scholarship 2001 The Uneasy Case for Adverse Possession Jeffrey E. Stake Indiana University Maurer School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facpub Part of the Property Law and Real Estate Commons Recommended Citation Stake, Jeffrey E., "The Uneasy Case for Adverse Possession" (2001). Articles by Maurer Faculty. 221. https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facpub/221 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by Maurer Faculty by an authorized administrator of Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ARTICLE The Uneasy Case for Adverse Possession JEFFREY EVANS STAKE* "[M]an, like a tree in the cleft of a rock, gradually shapes his roots to his surroundings, and when the roots have grown to a certain size, can't be displaced without cutting at his life. "1 INTRODUCTION In the above quotation, Justice Holmes explained title by prescription and the '2 "strange and wonderful" doctrine of adverse possession. Judge Posner has argued that Holmes was making a point about the diminishing marginal utility of income. I think not. One purpose of this Article is to develop a different interpretation of Justice Holmes, an interpretation with roots in modem experi- mental psychology and the theory of loss aversion. 4 Professors Stoebuck and Whitman stated in their property treatise, "If we had no doctrine of adverse possession, we should have to invent something very like it."'5 That was true in the past and may still be true today, but it is not at all clear that it will remain true in the future.