INTRODUCTION

“A man’s home is his castle.” We usually understand this saying to suggest that homeownership is characterized, and perhaps even constituted, by a powerful right to exclude others. But it also reflects commonly held conceptions about private ownership more broadly and its connection with the right to exclude. Are these conceptions accurate? Is the right to exclude the sine qua non of ownership, as some have argued, such that, lacking the right, there is no private property? Consider these questions in connection with the following examples, which discuss the right to exclude in several different contexts.

The Right to Exclude and the Private Home

The Jacque family owned a home on 170 acres in a rural area of Wisconsin. Steenberg Homes needed to deliver a mobile home to a parcel near the Jacques’ property, and the easiest way to get there was to cross the Jacques’ land. (There were other ways to get there, but they involved significantly more expense.) Steenberg Homes sought the Jacques’ permission to cross their land, but the Jacques refused to grant it. When Steenberg nevertheless crossed the Jacques’ land, the Jacques sued. After a trial, the jury granted, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court ultimately approved, a significant punitive damages award. Jacque seems to affirm the veracity of the notion that a man’s home is his castle, with a vengeance! But the law is more complicated than that: