Talk:Rule in Shelley's Case

Possible Additions
An example would be extremely helpful for this article to explain the rule, how it worked, and how it works now that it has been abolished.--Mason13a 23:38, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * This article is still too confusing CoolGuy 05:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Change in Tone, Citation to Legal Authority, Illustrations
As you can see, a major revision of this article with sources and problems in under way. Please let me know what you think of it. I intend to make the above these three changes in the course of the next two weeks.

Here are some of the reasons I removed the pre-March 2008 content. The constant reminders of the uselessness of the Rule are only opinion, but as opinion they could be cited to very authoritative writers. The truth, however, is that the relevance of the rule remains unclear in many jurisdictions. In theory the Rule in Shelley's case can still have consequences for a property or trust lawyer.

It is also difficult for anyone to maintain a position that something is useless when it could mean the difference between an B and a B+ on a law school exam. It is no help to a young law student looking for help on a curious point of law to find only a complaint about its difficulty, and no illustration. An article of this nature also tends to enforce the impression that lawyers nurture impractical intellectual doctrines for their own sake, when in practice, understanding the Rule in Shelley's Case works in tandem with and can illuminate several highly relevant principles of property law--for example, the nature of the term "heirs" as words of limitation, not words of purchase.

Finally, there is no reason why an article about a doctrine that, however odd, can and must be applied with mathematical precision, should not have a few elementary illustrations.

That said, it may always be a confusing article. The Rule in Shelley's Case is really confusing unless studied in conjunction with broader principles of the law of future interests. Theprovost (talk) 04:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has, of course, an article on future interest, which isn't linked here - perhaps you would be able to show how they relate? EdC (talk) 01:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * linked to future interests. --67.81.73.193 (talk) 17:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)