Abstract
The accession doctrine (specificatio in Roman law) in property law exists in both common law and civil law, but its specific content differs across the two: the common law disallows bad-faith improvers to gain title, while the civil law generally does not distinguish between good faith and bad faith. There are two tests in transferring title, the transformation test and the disparity-of-value test. France stipulates one test; the US requires either test to be satisfied; and Germany requires both. Furthermore, not all jurisdictions award compensation to unauthorized improvers who do not gain title. The prior literature has not explored, in detail, under what conditions the accession doctrine is most efficient, nor which version of the doctrine is economically superior. This article argues that the accession doctrine is most likely to be welfare-enhancing if designed in the following ways: improvers have to conduct cost-justified verification so that bad-faith and negligently good-faith improvers do not gain title to the chattel in question. Both the transformation test and the disparity-of-value test have to be satisfied. The original owner has no duty to compensate the improver for her labor.
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Notes
Merrill (2009) points out that, instead of adopting the competition strategy utilized by the rule of first possession, the accession principle adopts a competence strategy, awarding ownership to someone who has already “demonstrated she has the capacity to function as the owner of some prominently connected asset,” because the new owner has capital, physical access, and local knowledge to develop the resource. On economic analysis of the first possession rule, see Epstein (1979, 1998a), Lueck (1995), Rose (1985)
“Accession is grounded in a conception of original title as an attachment to existing ownership rights” (Merrill 2009). Accordingly, a newborn kitten belongs to the mother cat’s owner, and trees belong to the owner of the soil.
For economic analysis of accessio and confusio, see Chang (2012b).
See Merrill and Smith (2007b) for the same criterion in defining the accession principle and the accession doctrine. This article will use specificatio and the accession doctrine interchangeably.
It should be worth noting that the accession doctrine (ironically) is an oddball in the accession principle family. First of all, the accession doctrine applies to cases in which labor is added to properties, while other doctrines in the accession principle apply to cases in which at least two non-labor (usually physical) properties are involved. While we can follow the Lockean tradition and regard one as the “owner” of her labor, assigning the title of the improved property to the owner of labor, rather than the owner of materials, does not easily fit into the conception of accession principle.
For analysis of the accession doctrine from the Lockean labor theory, see Claeys (2013).
Varadarajan (2014), for example, cites several recent cases applying the accession doctrine.
One referee inquires whether the logic brought to light in this article is applicable to good-faith purchase of stolen goods; negotiorum gestio; and improvements made by possessors of a thing belonging to another before possessors having to return the thing. My view is that as good-faith purchase involves transactions, it is a different question. I will deal with it in a future paper. As for possessors’ improvements, it is the exact same problem, and my analysis applies. Indeed, to the extent that the stipulations regarding possessors’ improvements (e.g. German Civil Code arts. 988–996 and Taiwan Civil Code arts. 955 and 957) deviate from the specificatio doctrine, they are inefficient. Finally, some of the incentive problems discussed in this article apply to negotiorum gestio, but since negotiorum gestio does not necessarily concern improvements of things, the analytical framework cannot be directly transplanted.
Part of the facts are borrowed from the leading case Wetherbee v. Green, 22 Mich. 311 (1871). Two other accession cases also involve the processing of timber. See Beede v. Lamprey, 64 N.H. 510 (1888); E.E. Bolles Wooden Ware Co. v. United States, 106 U.S. 432 (1882).
Levmore (1985) notes several modern accession cases involving mistaken improvement of cars, including Walden v. Vera’s Auto Body Serv., 94 Misc. 2d 792 (1978); Greenwood v. Bennet, 3 W.L.R. 691 (Can. C.A. 1972).
See Koh (1998) for a review of the case law.
Note that the compensation rule in this article does NOT refer to improvers’ obligation to compensate owners when title transfers. This universal requirement is well justified, and thus not elaborated in the article. In short, a no-compensation rule would induce more people to improve nonconsensually and pretend that they are good-faith. Also, the compensation requirement ensures that improvers value the chattel at least at fair market value (which is the compensation standard).
China is a notable exception. The Chinese lawmakers deliberately left out the accession doctrine in China’s Property Law of 2007 (Chang 2012b).
See Sections 950 and 951 of the German Civil Code.
See Articles 570 and 571 of the French Civil Code.
See Articles 246 and 248 of the Japan Civil Code.
See Article 814 and 816 of the Taiwan Civil Code.
Note that the accession doctrine discussed here is distinct from the inverted accession doctrine (stipulated in Italy, Spain, and Portugal), which is known as the boundary encroachment (or building encroachment) doctrine in, for example, Germany, Japan, and Taiwan. The accession doctrine universally applies to chattels, whereas the inverted accession doctrine mainly concerns accessio of real estate. While the nature of the problem is similar (efficient verification), the solution differs due to different information environment and the distinct natures of movables versus immovable and accessio versus specificatio.
See Article 570 of the French Civil Code, Article 248 of the Japan Civil Code, and Article 816 of the Taiwan Civil Code.
This is not universal in civil law countries. Article 726 of the Swiss Civil Code distinguishes between good-faith and bad-faith processors.
Under the property rule, “the state guarantees property right assignments against infringement through the threatened use of its police powers” (Kaplow and Shavell 1996).
“A liability rule gives at least one party an option to take an entitlement non-consensually and pay the entitlement owner some exercise price” (Ayres and Balkin 1996).
Smith (2009b) even argues that in high transaction cost situations, property rules should have some presumptive force as well (though liability rules are worth considering).
A put option in law is an “option to force a non-consensual purchase on the other side” (Ayres 1998). Following the matrix and naming convention initiated by Calabresi and Melamed (1972), a put option law is called either a Rule 5 or Rule 6, depending on which party has the initial entitlement. The literature uses Rule 5 to refer to situations in which “polluters” have initial entitlements and Rule 6 to those in which “residents” have initial entitlements (Ayres 1998; Levmore 1997; Ayres 2005). In my prior work (Chang 2014), I use Rule 6 to denote the put option held by the original property owner, and Rule 5 to refer to the put option held by the original non-owner. The improver here does not own the chattel in question before the improvement; thus she holds a Rule-5 put option.
Note that this article discusses only the accession doctrine, and the problem of commingled goods (confusio) is not included. The accession doctrine typically deals with the integration of one thing and labor owned by different persons, while the commingled goods question deals with integration of at least two things owned by different persons, with or without labor by either party or a third party. For economic analysis of commingled goods, see Chang (2012b).
For the definition of efficiency in property, see Chang (2014).
Nevertheless, as information (regarding patent law) and physical objects (regarding property law) are different in several important economic aspects, this article does not intend to extend the analysis to patent law.
Accessio and confusio are also in the accession principle family, and some jurisdictions have employed co-ownership as a solution to accessio and confusio. Nonetheless, I am not aware of any jurisdiction that uses co-ownership to deal with specificatio. This makes sense. Specificatio is the combination of A’s materials and B’s labor (and perhaps B’s materials and IP rights, too). It is hard enough to evaluate B’s labor, and it is not an easy task to evaluate the relative contribution of A and B, which is essential to determine the shares of A and B if co-ownership is the rule. Once A and B become co-owners, their animosity from bargaining and litigation may hinder efficient use of the co-owned thing. Also, under my theory, labor need not be evaluated, as the improver either acquires the title of the processed things or is not compensated for the improvement.
I thank Daphna Lewinsohn-Zamir for pushing me on this point.
The owner’s entitlement against people other than the improver is still protected by the property rule [Regarding how this structure can be viewed from the perspective of property as a bundle of relations, see Chang and Smith (2012).] Bell and Parchomovsky (2002) define the “pliability rule” as “contingent rules that provide an entitlement owner with property rule or liability rule protection as long as some specified condition obtains; however, once the relevant condition changes, a different rule protects the entitlement—either liability or property, as the circumstances dictate.”
According to the Coase Theorem, if transaction cost is zero or low enough, the use of resources will be efficient, no matter how entitlements are assigned (Coase 1960; Cooter and Ulen 2012). This implies that the property rule can achieve efficiency. Calabresi and Melamed (1972) first expressly argue that when transaction cost is low, the property rule is more efficient. Many scholars have countered this argument (e.g. Kaplow and Shavell 1996; Ayres 2005; Ayres and Goldbart 2001; Ayres and Talley 1995b). Chang (2014) reviews and critiques these works as applied to property law.
On using liability rules to overcome hold-out problems, see Epstein (1997).
Granted, ex post (after the improvement), the improver and the original owner may fall into the bilateral monopoly context. Nevertheless, economic analysis is mainly an ex ante analysis, rather than an ex post analysis (Smith 2009b; Brooks and Schwartz 2005; Bebchuk 2001). Ex post, the two parties in most litigation are entrenched in the bilateral monopoly scenario. Ex ante, one-on-one bargaining is not coterminous with bilateral monopoly, as explained in the text.
Subjective value is the difference between economic value and market value. See the following footnotes for detailed explanations.
Market value (or fair market value) is “the amount a willing buyer would pay a willing seller of the property, taking into account all possible uses to which the property might be put other than the use contemplated by the taker” (Dana and Merrill 2002).
Sterk (2008), however, argues that it is difficult for the court to differentiate good faith from bad faith, and the distinction will create perverse incentives to be good-faith, even when the verification cost is low. Nonetheless, if bad-faith improvers could gain titles, they will not verify even if the cost is low. There are two types of bad faith: one, a party who knows who the real owner is; the other, a party who knows she does not own the chattel but does not know who owns it. There should be a very strong case against giving the first type of bad-faith improvers titles, as their verification cost is zero. The cost for courts to distinguish the two types of bad faith or distinguish between good faith and bad faith is a serious concern. When the background evidentiary rule or the inability of fact-finders (judges or juries) makes such a distinction difficult, the case for the different treatments are weakened. But keep in mind that courts are often required to distinguish good faith and bad faith in many other contexts, such as the good-faith purchase rule. Questioning courts’ ability to single out bad-faith improvers also casts doubts on their ability to sort out bad-faith agents in other contexts.
In good-faith purchase context, Landes and Posner (1996) distinguishes good-faith and innocent, which correspond to not negligent and negligent in this article, respectively. That is, an innocent/negligent improver fails to spend reasonable expenses in verifying titles. The Landes and Posner terms are more concise, but somehow do not gain much popularity in the property literature. For the sake of clarity and connection to the prior literature, I still use negligence and not negligent terms. Mackaay (2012) also defines good-faith as “justifiable ignorance.”
That is, my accession regime (and perhaps all regimes) is unlikely to be wealth-maximizing, but it should be wealth-increasing.
A textbook example: what should Peter do when he finds and likes a log at his camping site? I think it is reasonable and low-cost for Peter to check with the camp administrator or the ranger or cowboy who swings by, before he takes the log as his own and starts working on it.
One may worry that the accumulated verification cost across the whole society would be huge. As argued above, only people who are not sure of the chattel titles would actually incur verification expenses. Thus, the accumulated cost should not be exaggerated.
There are disputes in the Netherlands and other countries as to whether million-dollar, leased aircraft engines would become owned by the aircraft frame owners through the accession doctrine (Gomez 2010). These aircraft engines are leased through complicated financing contracts and all parties are well aware of the nature of the deal. There is no policy reason that the accession doctrine would apply in this context, where everyone is “bad-faith.”
Bad-faith improvers might be more inclined to steal the things in question because they have no chance of gaining titles through the accession doctrine. But the criminal punishment should keep the stealing incentives in check.
The adjudication cost is arguably higher if courts have to compare the cost and benefit of verification for bad-faith improvers.
Cooter and Ulen (2012) call it the “normative Hobbes theorem.”
Since the improvement is reversible, it probably would not be a problem for the original owner to prove her original ownership. Besides, the original owner can determine whether to reverse the improvement, so the property rule would not give the original owner a perverse incentive to destroy the value increment brought by the improvement.
I do not yet have a good theory of how to define “disparity” of value. Perhaps it is better left to the court to determine on a case-by-case basis.
See the overview of the accession doctrine in the Introduction.
Note, however, that, as Smith (2007) points out, the disparity-of-value test is better than the transformation test in reducing judicial decision-making costs. This is a reason for favoring the former test.
This is yet another example of how the property rule reduces the “measurement cost” of producing information about assets and activities (Smith 2004). Note, however, that Epstein (2014) points out that the accession doctrine avoids the ticklish issues of valuing the labor of the improver, which reduces the judicial decision-making cost. This argument is based on the stance that improver’s labor has to be compensated. See discussion below.
As Epstein (1995) points out, “assigning the property right to the party to whom it is more valuable is not panacea. It ignores the cost of administering the property-rights system, which might be lower under a simpler criterion for assigning rights.”
I thank Lee Anne Fennell for raising the problem of intellectual property rights.
See explanations and literature cited in footnote 24.
When the improver is negligently good-faith, she unintentionally processes the thing. Thus, the improver does not consciously exercise a put option. Nevertheless, when the improver realizes that she is not the owner, she still requires the owner to pay her. In other words, the improver at least exercises her put option ex post.
Also, the original owner can hardly be thought of as imposing externality on others; thus, compensation is not needed for internalization.
That is, I assume that minor improvements are common sense that both owners and improvers are aware of them, while there is information asymmetry in major improvements—such that improvers, due to their expertise, are aware of the possibility as well as the cost and benefit of such renovation, whereas owners are not aware of them unless informed by experts.
Such “improvements,” for the original owners, are probably personal property torts, because they reduce the economic value of the properties. Improvements do not lead to personal property tort actions, because by definition improvements mean increases in market value. The court can only observe market value, but not economic value. Therefore, the court only finds personal property tort liabilities when there is a reduction in market value of the property at issue.
The compensation rule thus creates the problem that is similar to the moral hazard problem in takings law. Namely, when landowners are fully compensated by condemnors, landowners will over-invest, because they can regard the probability of takings as zero (Blume et al. 1984; Miceli and Segerson 2007; Chang 2012a). Here, fully compensated improvers will over-improve.
What if the improver turns out to be the real owner, but he does not improve due to the risk of not being compensated? This is a drawback in my theory. Nonetheless, my hunch is that when improvers are real owners, they tend to be certain of their ownership and do not refrain from improving.
Porat (2009) lists six cumulative conditions for compensating unrequested benefits that produce public goods. The compensation rule in the accession doctrine can hardly meet these requirements.
In civil law countries that do not distinguish between good-faith and bad faith laborers, the moral hazard problem is even more serious. Dari-Mattiacci (2009) explains why restitution for “negative liability” should be limited to unintentional benefactor.
In the adverse possession context, Fennell (2006) has persuasively argued that “[t]here is no reason to think that people who are making honest mistakes are necessarily also making efficient mistakes.” Thus, good-faith improvement is not coterminous with efficient improvement.
American courts occasionally offer the original owner the choice of compensating or selling the thing to the improver at the price of pre-improvement value. Levmore (1985) points out that this approach does not work well in the accession context (other than automobile repairs) because of the difficult valuation problem and the fact that the original owner can hardly buy a pre-improved, repair-needed stereo system with the selling price she receives.
Smith (2009a) discusses the safety valve in the intellectual properties and boundary encroachment contexts.
“Color of title” refers to “a claim founded on a written instrument (a deed, a will) or a judgment or decree that is for some reason defective and invalid” (Dukeminier et al. 2010).
. In the adverse possession context, Fennell (2006) argues that title insurance, improved title searching, etc. protect improvers better than the adverse possession doctrine. The alternatives that Fennell mentions are not available to personal properties in the accession context, so the justifications to protect good-faith improvers under color of title should be stronger.
Still, owners are unlikely to increase prevention cost by much because of such a no-compensation rule, because it is equivalent to chattels being stolen or lost and not recovered. However, a no-compensation rule is likely to induce strategic improvements by laborers who are good at pretending to be innocent.
Merrill & Smith (2007a) called the accession doctrine venerable.
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Acknowledgments
I thank the two anonymous referees at EJLE, Lloyd Cohen, Lee Ann Fennell, Fernando Gomez, Jimmy Chia-Shin Hsu, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci, D. Bruce Johnsen, Steven Kan, Daniel Kelly, Daniel Klerman, Daphna Lewinsohn-Zamir, Ejan Mackaay, Thomas Merrill, Eric Posner, Shitong Qiao, Matteo Rizzoli, Chung-Lun Shen, Steven Shavell, Henry Smith, referees for EALE, and participants in the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Asian Law and Economics Association in Beijing, China; the Western Economic Association International’s 10th Biennial Pacific Rim Conference in Tokyo, Japan; the 5th Law and Economic Analysis Conference held at Academia Sinica; and the 30th Annual Conference of the European Association of Law and Economics held at University of Warsaw, Poland, for their helpful comments. Research assistance by Yi-shin Chen, Charline Jao, Han-shin Lin, and Christine Yuan are gratefully acknowledged.
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Chang, Yc. An economic and comparative analysis of specificatio (the accession doctrine). Eur J Law Econ 39, 225–243 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-014-9453-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-014-9453-0
Keywords
- Allocative efficiency
- Verification
- Property rule
- Liability rule
- Title transfer rule
- Compensation
- Put option