What Lies Beneath

One of my new classes this term is property. I have to admit I was not looking forward to that one. I just pictured it being a lot of old crotchedy people trying to sue their upstart neighbors for building a fence that accidentally extends a millimeter on to their property (that's the sort of thing that happens in my home town).

There is that, but so far it has been much cooler. I mean it is funny because there are a lot of very British cases (whether we are actually talking their side of the Atlantice or ours), and the personalities are amazing! The duck catcher who is mad at his neighbor for building his new duck net too close to his, so he unloads round after round in the guys yard to scare them away. Then there was a the grumpy old man who didn't like the young nouveau riche upstart who would go on crazy fox hunts, so just as he was about to close in on the fox Mr. Crotchedy jumps out and kills the fox first. Oh and we talked about the whale mafia of Cape Cod.

I think the prof though the whale mafia was a weird idea for most people so he was explaining how rough the lobster crowd up in Maine is. There the coast is technically open to anyone so anyone can leave their lobster traps, but if you step into one of the lobster gangs turf they will cut the rope connecting your trap and your buoy. For me that was funny, they do the same in Long Island. I could relate, oh Long Island, so full of surprises.

We also had a cool case where man was suing an airline for flying over his house. This was a while ago so it didn't have to do with federal aviation regulations, but with him trying to claim all the air above his land belonged to him. And it is funny because it doesn't. We are more eager to give people what is under their land, but even then underground rivers don't belong to the people whose land they run through, but oil does (well, in this country if not in glorious Canada).

The resource stuff I found really interesting and certainly is relevant with all the underground minerals and energy sources countries and firms are fighting for -cough-Russia-cough. Anyway I thought it was really cool and will now definitely apply to the Total (the French oil/gas giant) legal internship in Paris I found. So many disputes over underground stuff! All the gas in the Caspian Sea, the legal disputes over the north sea not so far back, and over the North Pole: the new frontier! Also, Russia tends not to play nicely with others, which could work in my favor with that career wise. Though I suppose I do run the risk of become a huge douche/evil oil lawyer. I'll deal with that one as it present itself.

Oh, and I know I steal a lot of images off the internet, but I was amused to find this one: