| Pierson v. Post | |
|---|---|
| Court | New York Supreme Court of Judicature |
| Decided | 1805 |
| Citation | 3 Cai. R. 175, 2 Am. Dec. 264 [Notes 1] |
| Case history | |
| Prior actions | Pierson v. Post, unreported case in the court of Queens County[Notes 2] |
| Court membership | |
| Judges sitting | James Kent Daniel Tompkins Henry Brockholst Livingston |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority: Tompkins Dissent: Livingston | |
Pierson v. Post is an early American legal case from the State of New York that later became a foundational case in the field of property law.
The case involved an incident that took place in 1802 at an uninhabited beach near Southampton, New York. Lodowick Post, a local resident, was out with a hunting party when his hunting dogs caught the scent of a fox and began pursuing it. As they drew near the fox, Jesse Pierson, another local resident, saw the fox—though he denied seeing Post and his party—and promptly killed it and carried it off for himself. Post filed a lawsuit against Pierson claiming that because he had already begun pursuing the fox, the property of the fox's pelt and carcass were rightfully his, not Pierson's. The local justice ruled in favor of Post. Pierson appealed the ruling to the New York Supreme Court of Judicature,[Notes 3] which in 1805 reversed the justice's decision and ruled in favor of Pierson.
Pierson v. Post is generally considered the most famous property law case in American legal history.[1] Although it only involved a dispute over which of two men deserved ownership of a fox, adjudicating the dispute required determining at what point a wild animal becomes "property". The judges chose not to follow common law precedent on wild animal capture, and so were forced to synthesize reasoning from a variety of well-known historical legal treatises—ranging from the Institutes of Justinian in the 6th century to the writings of Henry de Bracton in the 13th century and Samuel von Pufendorf in the 17th century—into a coherent principle on how property can be first possessed by a human being.[2] Determining the rightful ownership of the fox involved the essence of the human notion of "property" itself and how it is created, and for this reason Pierson v. Post is included in nearly all Anglo-American property casebooks.
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