That Saruman would dissent rather than likewise recusing himself only goes to show what kind of person he is. Hopefully he’s impeached before he further damages the court’s credibility.

A few of the possible issues this would give rise to:

If decided under the Law of Mordor, a realm generally recognized (if loathed) by the other realms of Middle-Earth. As dictator, he could serve as judge and jury in his own case, and the counsel for the opposition would be at a disadvantage as the fairer races consider it an ill omen for the words of the Black Tongue (the official language of Mordor) to be spoken aloud. Of course, following his defeat, Sauron and the Realm of Mordor exist only in pretense.

Aragon, as King Elessar of Arnor, Gondor, and High King of the Reunited Kingdom, could claim sovereign immunity if suit was brought under the laws of these realms.

Additionally, the One Ring traveled and changed possession in a variety of realms – including various modern States, city-states, and private domains (Principalities? I doubt any state would presume to claim Tom Bombadil’s land, yet his “country” consists solely of his home and the surrounding environs) – and the various claimants and the locations where possession begin and end occur in different countries as well.

This is complicated by the fact that the legal schemas vary widely from place to place – consider, for instance, the nature of the inhabitants of such varied locales as the Shire, Rivendell, Fangorn Forest, and the Lonely Mountain (either before or after the return of the King Under the Mountain and the demise of Smaug) and how the legal regimes would reflect such varying natures.

As their is no ownership in an idea, there is no possibility of theft, no need for the fiction of borrowing. Information wants to be free.

Law is Cool: As noted, this is an entirely original entry, aside from the idea being brought up in in property law class. It was researched and drafted without any knowledge of others who have attempted a similar analysis in the past.
Any resemblance to existing property law exams is coincidental – but we encourage those who have done similar work to share it here.

By: Robert Bexley

Frodo Baggins v. Sauron, (Mrdr. App. Ct. 2008).

The case at bar is one between the estate of Mr. Sauron, Plaintiff and Mr. Frodo Baggins, Defendant. Plaintiff brought suit alleging that Defendant had intentionally destroyed a valuable family heirloom of the decedent. The trial court denied demurrer for Defendant, and the jury awarded Plaintiff $200,000 in nominal and punitive damages. Defendant appealed, stating trial court error in denying demurrer.
The facts go back 650 years. Mr. Smeagol Gollum, a hermit and schizophrenic, misplaced his gold ring. While spelunking in a cave, Bilbo Baggins, Appellant/Defendant’s uncle, found the ring.
Upon returning home, Mr. Baggins kept the ring safe and on his nephew’s eleventy-first birthday, conveyed the ring to him. Appellant, Frodo Baggins, learned that the ring in fact belonged to Mr. Sauron of Golgoroth and instead of returning the ring, Appellant was told by his counsel, Mr. Gandalf Mithrandir, Esq., to destroy it in Mount Doom. The facts of the trial court are unclear as to why this course of action was necessary.
Appellant snuck into Mordor and ascended Mount Doom. Upon reaching the summit, however, Mr. Gollum approached Appellant insisting upon the return of the ring. Appellant refused and hit Mr. Gollum on the head. Immediately before throwing the ring into the fiery depths of Mount Doom, Appellant had a change of heart and put on the ring so he could safely return it to Mr. Sauron. Mr. Gollum awoke furious and bit off the finger of Appellant on which the ring was placed. Appellant then pushed Mr. Gollum over a cliff into molten lava, destroying the ring, Mr. Gollum, and oddly enough, Mr. Sauron.
Despite the horrors of Appellant’s actions, the case at bar is only concerned with the destruction of Plaintiff/Respondent’s property.
There is a doctrine in Torts that justifies the actions of a person, when acting in good faith; he may destroy another’s property in the best interest of the community as long as the necessity is clearly shown. In Surroco v. Geary, it was necessary to raze a house in order to save adjoining homes and thus the city from an oncoming blaze. The court found the defendant not liable for destroying the plaintiff’s home because he was acting in the public interest, even by good faith mistake.
Mr. Baggins was under the impression that he was protecting the public interest by destroying the so-called “One Ring to Rule Them All.” We hold that pushing an ancient malnourished lunatic into magma to destroy a ring is conduct reasonably necessary to protect all of humanity. As such, we find that the trial court erred by denying Appellant’s demurrer. We reverse the trial court’s ruling and hold Appellant not liable for damages to Respondent’s property.

(omitted, Saruman, J., dissenting.)

http://groups.google.com/group/misc.legal.moderated/browse_thread/thread/a0e5dd3b42d755c3/e7dddeff8953dcc3?q=%2Bsmeagol+%2Bbrennan

In fact, I gave this question – - disputes over property rights in the One Ring – - on my actual Property Law exam at Duke Law School back in April 2004. My question was designed to be answerable based on the key events it recounted, without further knowledge of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books. Students enjoyed it, and they offered creative answers.

Maybe the authors of this entry “borrowed” their idea from my exam? Or perhaps it’s a case of independent inspiration.
- JBW

Law is Cool: As noted in the original linked article, inspiration for this post came from one of our own Properly law professors who mentioned it in class. It is quite possible that he got the idea from you. Thanks for letting us know.

Anyway, it seems pretty obvious to me that the ownership claim of abandonment must be… abandonned (rimshot).

Sauron most certainly didn’t abandon it, it was cut off his hand. Isildur didn’t abandon it, he was killed and it *dropped itself, but he didn’t intend to lose it- he is quoted by Gandalf as having left a record in Gondor’s archives that it would be ‘an heirloom of his house- weregild for the deaths of Elendil his father and Anorien his brother’

That shuts down Gollum’s claim, and the moreso Bilbo’s after Gollum’s reaction: going EVEN insaner and beating the freakin’ NAZGUL @ finding it and RETRIEVING IT!!! Sure he got burned up and sent to hell yadayada, but come on- if YOU’D just beaten the 9 Undead Kings of the Lord of the Rings at Hide and Seek and Rule the World, wouldn’t you celebrate? ;D

That leaves the weregild claim of Isildur- and Aragorn’s claim as his heir. Only if Isildur’s claim stands can Aragorn justify passing it to Frodo, or permit Gandalf to permit Elrond to permit…etc. the point is, The Fellowship itself is illegal, since its purpose was to protect a right that was not justly held (possession of the Ring by Frodo)

As far as a weregild claim goes- not only could Isildur claim simple relationship, but as the leader of a world power, and member of the Last Alliance-which means he could easily also claim weregild on GILGALAD the HIGH KING OF THE NOLDOR, the Highest Elves in Middle Earth.

That might qualify for compensation as great as a Ring of Power; but in my opinion still not the One, since that would imply an extension to ownership of ALL the Rings: “One Ring to Rule Them All…”

But the lives of at least 2 Numenoreans of Gondor’s Royal Family, the Leaders of BOTH elven races that had kings- (Oropher fell at the Black Gate-he was Legolas’ grandfather; Rivendell and Lorien would have been subject to Gilgalad)…
that would be worth, at least one of the Seven, and definitely the return of the Palantir of Minas Ithil…and throw in the absolvment of any claim made any ally or servant of Sauron to lands outside the Mountains of Mordor, exempting those held by the Haradhrim and the Easterlings (targeting Orcs here)

Isildur, though, definitely has some justification in claiming some sort of Weregild from Sauron for the deaths of the nobles of the Alliance during that war; Sauron has a greater right to keep the ring, and in case anyone wants to ask about corporeal stewardship during his ’shadow years’- it can only be either the Mouth of Sauron, who would have replaced Sarumaan had the Ring been recovered (see ROTK), or the Witch-King himself-slain on the Pelennor Fields, then it passes to the next highest Ringwraith, who was actually of all the Nine given a name-Khamul:he was a Haradrim, and called the ‘Shadow of the East’

It seems implied by including both the character of Khamul in supplemental writings, and the Mouth of Sauron at the Black Gate, that indeed Tolkien MEANT to show a full line of succession/heirs for Sauron’s claim! But I just realized that since either way Sauron gets the Ring, then all the other thousands of words I wrote dont matter because we should all be under the Dominion of the Land of Shadow.

Does Mordor’s Constitution have the Right to Free Speech?
Does it HAVE a Bill of Rights?
Do the orcs even get a Constitution?!?!

It’s possible that this forum has justified its own destruction, which would mean that it might have been ironically better if we had never spoken up. lmao.

good thing Middle-Earth is not the real world, or we would all be screwed –> Sauron has the right to own a thing which he invented that allows him the rule the world. Right to revolt now translates to right to commit suicide if he regains the Ring, since no revolt could possibly succeed. Unless somehow abuse of power could justify a legal injunction, like a Declaration of Independence. only written in Elvish?