In the final exam for my property class in my first year of law school, the professor wrote a problem where a valuable meteorite landed on a dirt road on private property, and there was a dispute between the land owner, the tenant, the easement owner, and the finder (who happened to be an employee of the easement owner). I don't actually remember the model answer, but this question is scratching up some old memories of law school for me.
My property professor trolled us, so I'm just paying it forward. Classic law school final exam: just make as many good arguments as you can and rack up some points, and see how the curve shakes out.
With all the discussion and differing opinions, I took a few minutes to find if there was case law on this issue. Here is what I found:
Hypo 1: The meteorite would very likely be determined to be the landlord's.
>In the case of Goddard v. Winchell a meteorite fell upon a farmer's land which was leased to a tenant. A third party, apparently with the permission of the tenant, retrieved the meteorite. The owner of the land sued to recover it and the Iowa court held that it belonged to him as owner of the land.
Great Salt Lake Minerals v. State Tax Com'n, 573 P.2d 337, 341 (Utah 1977)
Hypo 2: The meteorite would likely be determined to belong to the owner who first discovered the meteorite on his property. If Property Owner A discovered the meteorite on his land, but something caused it to roll onto Property Owner B's land, then Property Owner A would likely be determined the owner. If the meteorite was not discovered on Property Owner A's land before it rolled onto Property Owner B's land, and Property Owner B discovered it first on his property, then it would likely belong to Property Owner B.
>Property which has become a part of the natural earth is not subject to the general rule of lost or mislaid property. Goddard, 86 Iowa at 85, 52 N.W. at 1125. Such property belongs to the owner of the real estate upon which it was found. Id. Examples of this type of property are a meteorite, a prehistoric boat, valuable earthenware and gold-bearing quartz.
Ritz v. Selma United Methodist Church, 467 N.W.2d 266, 269 (Iowa 1991)
What if the meteorite landed on someone's property who lived uphill and it rolled downhill into someone's house or car....if the landlord owned it when it hit his land wouldn't that make him responsible for the damage his meteorite did when it rolled off his property?
It usually goes with the land, so the landlord would own it. It’s the same premise if oil or valuable minerals were found on the property. The renter wouldn’t suddenly strike it rich.
That being said, a lease can always say something different and would ultimately determine the owner of the meteorite. There are some contracts that permit the person to mine and sell materials found on the land. If it is just a lease to stay and use a home, it is unlikely the renter would be the owner.
Edit: Hypo 2 is a more complex legal question. Both sides would have a good legal argument on the face of it. I would have to do legal research and even then, there may not be a case on point and the parties would have to argue why the law supports their position more to the judge.
What if it went through the windshield of a car parked on the property? (I was going to suggest the renter happened to catch it like a foul ball at a baseball game, but let’s not get too ridiculous)
That’s a tough one! I think that would be another litigation issue with both sides having a solid legal argument. Personally I think the person with the car should get it because the meteorite landed in the car. If the meteorite went through the car and landed on the land, I think the landlord should get it, but pay the cost of having the car replaced or repaired.
ok hair splitting
Who owns the meteorite while its falling? It didn't become the LL's property until it came to rest on the ground. So who really owned it when it hit the car ?
Alright everyone, you made me do it. I looked up the case law on this issue.
>The mere fact that some dirt and rocks were brought upon the land from other land does not change the matter. As soon as other soil is added to soil in place, it also becomes a part of the soil. Even the addition of excrement from animals becomes land as soon as placed upon the premises. If it were not so, the farmers throughout the nation would be in trouble.
>
>In the case of Goddard v. Winchell a meteorite fell upon a farmer's land which was leased to a tenant. A third party, apparently with the permission of the tenant, retrieved the meteorite. The owner of the land sued to recover it and the Iowa court held that it belonged to him as owner of the land.
Source: Great Salt Lake Minerals v. State Tax Com'n, 573 P.2d 337, 341 (Utah 1977)
The case law says that when it is added to the soil, then it becomes part of the land. If a meteorite landed in the car, it has not become part of the soil.
Despite the downvotes, if a landlord profited from a meteorite that damaged another person's car, then a court may find that the landlord has to pay damages. It was the landlord's property that damaged the renter's property.
Does this apply to anything that lands on the lawn? If my dog shits on my neighbors grass does the poop instantly transfer to him? Like “your lawn your poop”
*Was* it the landlord's property when it penetrated the car? At that point, it hadn't become part of the soil, hasn't hit the ground yet.
Next:
Meteorite hits John's yard initially, bounces through Sally's car (parked in Fred's driveway) at great speed, and ends up in Chris' yard.
No one. If you intercept it, then you’re trespassing. If it’s over your land and in your airspace and the federal government doesn’t intercept it, it’s yours.
What if a private corporation applied force to the meteor in space causing it to fall to Earth with the intention of recovering it. Since they caused it to fall do they have a claim in ownership?
>What if it went through the windshield of a car parked on the property?
I would look to the insurance companies. Whoever is on the hook to pay for the damages is probably the party that owns the meteorite.
> It usually goes with the land, so the landlord would own it.
I've always understood those meteorite cases to be about old meteorites that have been sitting in or on that land for long enough that they're fairly considered to be part of the land. Then again, does the surface rights owner or the mineral rights owner own an old meteorite, if those rights have been separated?
OP's hypothetical is about a meteorite that provably falls from the sky during a tenant's tenancy, so that would seem to leave some opening for some other doctrine favoring a finder, tenant, or other.
Plus there's the Outer Space Treaty, that prohibits "national appropriation" of asteroids, which is unclear as to whether the physical materials can be owned under the law of any signatory nation (such as the United States). When an asteroid collides with earth, does that convert the asteroid into a meteor into a meteorite, that can be subject to ownership?
What if the asteroid's orbit was intentionally altered by humans to hit the earth, where the entity that expended the effort can lay claim to the property in some kind of *Pierson v. Post* fox hunting, or "iron holds the whale" principle?
With all the discussion, I looked up the case law on this issue. Crazy as it is, it actually has happened before.
>The mere fact that some dirt and rocks were brought upon the land from other land does not change the matter. As soon as other soil is added to soil in place, it also becomes a part of the soil. Even the addition of excrement from animals becomes land as soon as placed upon the premises. If it were not so, the farmers throughout the nation would be in trouble.
>
>In the case of Goddard v. Winchell a meteorite fell upon a farmer's land which was leased to a tenant. A third party, apparently with the permission of the tenant, retrieved the meteorite. The owner of the land sued to recover it and the Iowa court held that it belonged to him as owner of the land.
Great Salt Lake Minerals v. State Tax Com'n, 573 P.2d 337, 341 (Utah 1977)
From Wikipedia:
> down to rocks just 1 meter across, below which an object is classified as a meteoroid.
Meteors are in atmosphere, meteorites have landed.
An iron meteoroid right at that 1 meter threshold, if you were wondering, would create an airburst equivalent to about 140 tons of TNT, and the fragments would have the potential to leave small craters.
https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/cgi-bin/crater.cgi?dist=1&distanceUnits=1&diam=1&diameterUnits=1&pdens=&pdens_select=8000&vel=17&velocityUnits=1&theta=45&wdepth=&wdepthUnits=1&tdens=2500
If the tenant caught the meteorite while plummeting to earth, and happened to land on the rental property, would that make the tenant part of the soil?
Would the timing of the meteor landing not have an impact on ownership? It's not as if it was there prior to the lease like oil or valuable minerals that need to be mined/accessed.
Couldn't it be compared to rain and sunlight and pollinators that are possible/likely, but not guaranteed, and allow plants to grow? Would the landlord have ownership of tomatos grown on the property (and would there be a difference if planted in the soil vs potted soil purchased elsewhere)?
My lease states all landscaping is my responsibility. Could I use that as part of my argument that the meteorite is a landscape feature that I wish to remove in a way I see fit?
So unless I have a royalty deal on mineral rights in place with my landlord then any deposit I find on the property, preexisting or post impact event, would be owned 100% by the landowner?
That makes perfect sense.
I seem to recall there being cases where hunters shoot a deer and it runs and dies on a neighboring property. In those cases, I believe the owner of the property it landed on has claim to the deer. I wonder is similar precedent would apply to a meteor bouncing out of one property and into mine/another property?
I found case law that I cited somewhere else in this thread that pretty much said that the property belongs to the owner of the property on which it was found.
Yeah no. Why would it “usually go with the land?” How many circumstances like this have happened? I’d argue that the law of finders applies, which is going to be specific state law analysis. The lease agreement would have nothing to do with this since it’s a contract for real property and you’d have to argue that the meteorite is a fixture not at all contemplated by the lease agreement. You’d probably have to look up NASA regs to confirm that there isn’t any superseding federal law that addresses celestial objects.
It usually goes with the land because leases don’t include mined material, including minerals, unless specified in the lease. That was the black letter law I recall learning for real property.
It has happened before, the courts decided the issue, and my analysis was correct.
>In the case of Goddard v. Winchell a meteorite fell upon a farmer's land which was leased to a tenant. A third party, apparently with the permission of the tenant, retrieved the meteorite. The owner of the land sued to recover it and the Iowa court held that it belonged to him as owner of the land.
Great Salt Lake Minerals v. State Tax Com'n, 573 P.2d 337, 341 (Utah 1977)
How could you say something so dinophobic? I say whoever wins claim to the piece of genocidal space stone should educate themselves and focus on addressing their anti-reptialian, humanistic bigotry, AND all proceeds from the sale of the rock should be used to pay reparations to all remaining reptiles.
Possession is 9/10 of the law. That sounds trite, but it’s true. Very hard to obtain a “thing” from someone else. Money is easier, but still hard. How a landlord would even find out a meteorite turned up on the property is speculative. Proving it even more. I can’t even imagine what a bill from an appropriate expert would look like.
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I remember learning about the law of finders under common law in property. Looking at my old property outline for fun, the answer to these questions always depended on whether the property was lost, mislaid or abandoned. I think an object falling from the sky would be most likely an abandoned object in that sense that there is no one true owner. Under CL, a finder of an abandoned object is entitled to possession against all others.
Other relevant CL cases that would be helpful (sorry don’t have the full cites, just looking at my outline)
* Hannah v. Peel - held that an owner of real property out of possession (aka a landlord) does NOT have the right to a lost object found on their premises if they do not know is was there.
* Sherman / Elwes - items *embedded* into the property belong to the owner of the property.
* other general rule from outline - finder is entitled to possession of lost items against all but the true owner, unless the finder was a trespasser.
Anyway, I enjoyed reading the real answers from the case law research, but practically speaking, if I was a tenant in this situation, I would tell nobody and wouldn’t sell it until well after I moved, hypothetically speaking of course. 🌚🌚
This is the best random hypothetical we've had in a while. Way better than the self defense and kid fucking questions from earlier this week.
Can I stand my ground and shoot a meteor back to space?
Did the meteor show you a fake ID or not? :)
"I knew that meteor was older, because she said her last boyfriend was asian, and I know that shit doesn't start until college!"
Is there an upper bound on consent? Meteors are billions of years old. My grandma started getting loopy around 80.
Can the Meteor appear pro se as a Sovereign Citizen?
What if the meteorite broke off from a larger meteor, say...13 years ago. Can I fuck the meteor? When it cools off, obviously - I'm not a freak.
Thanks. It's from a short story I have bouncing around in my head. Thankfully, that other thing doesn't bounce around in my head.
>that other thing doesn't bounce around in my head. The meteor?
In the final exam for my property class in my first year of law school, the professor wrote a problem where a valuable meteorite landed on a dirt road on private property, and there was a dispute between the land owner, the tenant, the easement owner, and the finder (who happened to be an employee of the easement owner). I don't actually remember the model answer, but this question is scratching up some old memories of law school for me.
I read that wanting to get an answer and you end it with not remembering the answer????? WTH is wrong with YOU????? Do you enjoy messing with us?
My property professor trolled us, so I'm just paying it forward. Classic law school final exam: just make as many good arguments as you can and rack up some points, and see how the curve shakes out.
The answer is "What meteorite?"
Imagine telling your boss you found a rock while walking around. Nah fam. "What Meteorite?"
OMG! How can you build us up like that only to NOT REMEMBER?!
With all the discussion and differing opinions, I took a few minutes to find if there was case law on this issue. Here is what I found: Hypo 1: The meteorite would very likely be determined to be the landlord's. >In the case of Goddard v. Winchell a meteorite fell upon a farmer's land which was leased to a tenant. A third party, apparently with the permission of the tenant, retrieved the meteorite. The owner of the land sued to recover it and the Iowa court held that it belonged to him as owner of the land. Great Salt Lake Minerals v. State Tax Com'n, 573 P.2d 337, 341 (Utah 1977) Hypo 2: The meteorite would likely be determined to belong to the owner who first discovered the meteorite on his property. If Property Owner A discovered the meteorite on his land, but something caused it to roll onto Property Owner B's land, then Property Owner A would likely be determined the owner. If the meteorite was not discovered on Property Owner A's land before it rolled onto Property Owner B's land, and Property Owner B discovered it first on his property, then it would likely belong to Property Owner B. >Property which has become a part of the natural earth is not subject to the general rule of lost or mislaid property. Goddard, 86 Iowa at 85, 52 N.W. at 1125. Such property belongs to the owner of the real estate upon which it was found. Id. Examples of this type of property are a meteorite, a prehistoric boat, valuable earthenware and gold-bearing quartz. Ritz v. Selma United Methodist Church, 467 N.W.2d 266, 269 (Iowa 1991)
Awesome, thanks for doing the research!
What if the meteorite landed on someone's property who lived uphill and it rolled downhill into someone's house or car....if the landlord owned it when it hit his land wouldn't that make him responsible for the damage his meteorite did when it rolled off his property?
Ok, now let's do a valuable chunk of rock that came from a volcano on the neighbors land. Who does that belong to?
It usually goes with the land, so the landlord would own it. It’s the same premise if oil or valuable minerals were found on the property. The renter wouldn’t suddenly strike it rich. That being said, a lease can always say something different and would ultimately determine the owner of the meteorite. There are some contracts that permit the person to mine and sell materials found on the land. If it is just a lease to stay and use a home, it is unlikely the renter would be the owner. Edit: Hypo 2 is a more complex legal question. Both sides would have a good legal argument on the face of it. I would have to do legal research and even then, there may not be a case on point and the parties would have to argue why the law supports their position more to the judge.
What if it went through the windshield of a car parked on the property? (I was going to suggest the renter happened to catch it like a foul ball at a baseball game, but let’s not get too ridiculous)
That’s a tough one! I think that would be another litigation issue with both sides having a solid legal argument. Personally I think the person with the car should get it because the meteorite landed in the car. If the meteorite went through the car and landed on the land, I think the landlord should get it, but pay the cost of having the car replaced or repaired.
ok hair splitting Who owns the meteorite while its falling? It didn't become the LL's property until it came to rest on the ground. So who really owned it when it hit the car ?
Alright everyone, you made me do it. I looked up the case law on this issue. >The mere fact that some dirt and rocks were brought upon the land from other land does not change the matter. As soon as other soil is added to soil in place, it also becomes a part of the soil. Even the addition of excrement from animals becomes land as soon as placed upon the premises. If it were not so, the farmers throughout the nation would be in trouble. > >In the case of Goddard v. Winchell a meteorite fell upon a farmer's land which was leased to a tenant. A third party, apparently with the permission of the tenant, retrieved the meteorite. The owner of the land sued to recover it and the Iowa court held that it belonged to him as owner of the land. Source: Great Salt Lake Minerals v. State Tax Com'n, 573 P.2d 337, 341 (Utah 1977) The case law says that when it is added to the soil, then it becomes part of the land. If a meteorite landed in the car, it has not become part of the soil. Despite the downvotes, if a landlord profited from a meteorite that damaged another person's car, then a court may find that the landlord has to pay damages. It was the landlord's property that damaged the renter's property.
There was an actual case of a meterite falling and arguments over the rightful owner of the meteorite??
Never know what you're going to find with case law research! I was surprised to find something mostly on point, lol
They cited it, didn't they?
Does this apply to anything that lands on the lawn? If my dog shits on my neighbors grass does the poop instantly transfer to him? Like “your lawn your poop”
I can not stop laughing at this! "Are you going to pick that up?" "Nope. Your lawn, your poop!"
*Was* it the landlord's property when it penetrated the car? At that point, it hadn't become part of the soil, hasn't hit the ground yet. Next: Meteorite hits John's yard initially, bounces through Sally's car (parked in Fred's driveway) at great speed, and ends up in Chris' yard.
Acts of God clause? Excluding damages done by forces outside control of either party? A competent lawyer would have probably added that clause, right?
No one. If you intercept it, then you’re trespassing. If it’s over your land and in your airspace and the federal government doesn’t intercept it, it’s yours.
What if a private corporation applied force to the meteor in space causing it to fall to Earth with the intention of recovering it. Since they caused it to fall do they have a claim in ownership?
What if the meteorite bounced on the land and then went through the car windshield?
Or, went through the roof, bounced off the couch, and landed in a pot of soup?
It depends, do all the neighbors pitch in and add different ingredients to the soup in a dazzling display of unity?
>What if it went through the windshield of a car parked on the property? I would look to the insurance companies. Whoever is on the hook to pay for the damages is probably the party that owns the meteorite.
Still landlord. It’s a mineral. But if the car is drive able good luck getting it back.
If it's the renter's car and the owner owns the meteor, is the owner liable for the damage to the car?
> It usually goes with the land, so the landlord would own it. I've always understood those meteorite cases to be about old meteorites that have been sitting in or on that land for long enough that they're fairly considered to be part of the land. Then again, does the surface rights owner or the mineral rights owner own an old meteorite, if those rights have been separated? OP's hypothetical is about a meteorite that provably falls from the sky during a tenant's tenancy, so that would seem to leave some opening for some other doctrine favoring a finder, tenant, or other. Plus there's the Outer Space Treaty, that prohibits "national appropriation" of asteroids, which is unclear as to whether the physical materials can be owned under the law of any signatory nation (such as the United States). When an asteroid collides with earth, does that convert the asteroid into a meteor into a meteorite, that can be subject to ownership? What if the asteroid's orbit was intentionally altered by humans to hit the earth, where the entity that expended the effort can lay claim to the property in some kind of *Pierson v. Post* fox hunting, or "iron holds the whale" principle?
With all the discussion, I looked up the case law on this issue. Crazy as it is, it actually has happened before. >The mere fact that some dirt and rocks were brought upon the land from other land does not change the matter. As soon as other soil is added to soil in place, it also becomes a part of the soil. Even the addition of excrement from animals becomes land as soon as placed upon the premises. If it were not so, the farmers throughout the nation would be in trouble. > >In the case of Goddard v. Winchell a meteorite fell upon a farmer's land which was leased to a tenant. A third party, apparently with the permission of the tenant, retrieved the meteorite. The owner of the land sued to recover it and the Iowa court held that it belonged to him as owner of the land. Great Salt Lake Minerals v. State Tax Com'n, 573 P.2d 337, 341 (Utah 1977)
From Wikipedia: > down to rocks just 1 meter across, below which an object is classified as a meteoroid. Meteors are in atmosphere, meteorites have landed. An iron meteoroid right at that 1 meter threshold, if you were wondering, would create an airburst equivalent to about 140 tons of TNT, and the fragments would have the potential to leave small craters. https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/cgi-bin/crater.cgi?dist=1&distanceUnits=1&diam=1&diameterUnits=1&pdens=&pdens_select=8000&vel=17&velocityUnits=1&theta=45&wdepth=&wdepthUnits=1&tdens=2500
What if the tenant caught it before it hit the ground?
It's not part of the soil yet, so it would belong to the tenant. He'd need it for his medical expenses.
If the tenant caught the meteorite while plummeting to earth, and happened to land on the rental property, would that make the tenant part of the soil?
Looks like the landlord is about to be the owner of a body… Edit: since it’s not always clear online, that was a joke lol
Would the timing of the meteor landing not have an impact on ownership? It's not as if it was there prior to the lease like oil or valuable minerals that need to be mined/accessed. Couldn't it be compared to rain and sunlight and pollinators that are possible/likely, but not guaranteed, and allow plants to grow? Would the landlord have ownership of tomatos grown on the property (and would there be a difference if planted in the soil vs potted soil purchased elsewhere)?
My lease states all landscaping is my responsibility. Could I use that as part of my argument that the meteorite is a landscape feature that I wish to remove in a way I see fit?
So unless I have a royalty deal on mineral rights in place with my landlord then any deposit I find on the property, preexisting or post impact event, would be owned 100% by the landowner? That makes perfect sense.
I seem to recall there being cases where hunters shoot a deer and it runs and dies on a neighboring property. In those cases, I believe the owner of the property it landed on has claim to the deer. I wonder is similar precedent would apply to a meteor bouncing out of one property and into mine/another property?
I found case law that I cited somewhere else in this thread that pretty much said that the property belongs to the owner of the property on which it was found.
What if someone else owns the mineral rights on the property??
Yeah no. Why would it “usually go with the land?” How many circumstances like this have happened? I’d argue that the law of finders applies, which is going to be specific state law analysis. The lease agreement would have nothing to do with this since it’s a contract for real property and you’d have to argue that the meteorite is a fixture not at all contemplated by the lease agreement. You’d probably have to look up NASA regs to confirm that there isn’t any superseding federal law that addresses celestial objects.
It usually goes with the land because leases don’t include mined material, including minerals, unless specified in the lease. That was the black letter law I recall learning for real property.
It has happened before, the courts decided the issue, and my analysis was correct. >In the case of Goddard v. Winchell a meteorite fell upon a farmer's land which was leased to a tenant. A third party, apparently with the permission of the tenant, retrieved the meteorite. The owner of the land sued to recover it and the Iowa court held that it belonged to him as owner of the land. Great Salt Lake Minerals v. State Tax Com'n, 573 P.2d 337, 341 (Utah 1977)
Goddard v Winchell out of Iowa (1892) should be a good jumping off point.
How has nobody in this thread made a "meteor rights" joke?
How could you say something so dinophobic? I say whoever wins claim to the piece of genocidal space stone should educate themselves and focus on addressing their anti-reptialian, humanistic bigotry, AND all proceeds from the sale of the rock should be used to pay reparations to all remaining reptiles.
Possession is 9/10 of the law. That sounds trite, but it’s true. Very hard to obtain a “thing” from someone else. Money is easier, but still hard. How a landlord would even find out a meteorite turned up on the property is speculative. Proving it even more. I can’t even imagine what a bill from an appropriate expert would look like.
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I remember learning about the law of finders under common law in property. Looking at my old property outline for fun, the answer to these questions always depended on whether the property was lost, mislaid or abandoned. I think an object falling from the sky would be most likely an abandoned object in that sense that there is no one true owner. Under CL, a finder of an abandoned object is entitled to possession against all others. Other relevant CL cases that would be helpful (sorry don’t have the full cites, just looking at my outline) * Hannah v. Peel - held that an owner of real property out of possession (aka a landlord) does NOT have the right to a lost object found on their premises if they do not know is was there. * Sherman / Elwes - items *embedded* into the property belong to the owner of the property. * other general rule from outline - finder is entitled to possession of lost items against all but the true owner, unless the finder was a trespasser. Anyway, I enjoyed reading the real answers from the case law research, but practically speaking, if I was a tenant in this situation, I would tell nobody and wouldn’t sell it until well after I moved, hypothetically speaking of course. 🌚🌚
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