Equitable Interest After Contract
Curtis Cannon signed a binding contract to sell land to Cynthia Cortez. Before closing a fire damaged the property. The court treated Cortez as owner in equity from contract formation so she bore the risk of loss.
Also known as: characterizations · characterize · characterisation · legal classification
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A process of classifying a legal claim, issue, or thing as falling within a particular doctrinal category or as substantive or procedural. The classification determines which body of law or rule applies to resolve the matter.
Curtis Cannon signed a binding contract to sell land to Cynthia Cortez. Before closing a fire damaged the property. The court treated Cortez as owner in equity from contract formation so she bore the risk of loss.
Caitlin Crowley sued in federal court on a state claim. With no federal rule on point the court weighed state and federal interests to decide whether a disputed issue counted as substantive or procedural.
Catherine Carter disputed ownership of equipment attached to land in another state. The court first classified the equipment as immovable under the situs law selected by the applicable choice-of-law principles.
Christian Coleman used force against an attacker. The court characterized the intended consequences under the self-defense privilege by assessing gravity of likely harm rather than actual outcome to decide if the means were privileged.
Cody Callahan and his spouse sued a clinic for possession of a cryopreserved embryo. The court applied the parties' agreement that characterized the embryo as their property subject to contractual disposition rights.
Cascade Manufacturing challenged a state marriage statute. The court characterized the claim as involving substantive due process and equal protection to select the applicable standard of review.
The petitioners were fourteen same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners were deceased. They lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. Those states defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman under their constitutions and statutes. The petitioners filed suits in federal district courts in their home states. They sought marriage licenses or recognition of marriages lawfully performed elsewhere. James Obergefell and John Arthur traveled from Ohio to Maryland to marry aboard a medical transport plane because Arthur suffered from ALS; Obergefell later sought to be listed as surviving spouse on Arthur's death certificate. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, Michigan nurses, adopted three children but could not both serve as legal parents under state adoption rules. Army Reserve Sergeant Ijpe DeKoe and Thomas Kostura married in New York before DeKoe's deployment to Afghanistan and later settled in Tennessee. Each district court ruled in the petitioners' favor. The respondents appealed. The Sixth Circuit consolidated the cases and reversed the district court judgments. The petitioners sought certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted. Same-sex couples had begun establishing families after substantial cultural and political developments in the late twentieth century. Earlier litigation had addressed the legal status of gays and lesbians, including challenges that reached the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas.
View caseCourts classify the claim as tort contract or property to select the governing rule. They also decide whether an issue is substantive or procedural. The classification controls which state's law applies.
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Once a land sale contract forms the buyer receives an equitable interest. This classification shifts risk of loss and determines creditor rights during the executory period.
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Parties' agreements may characterize embryos as property. Courts then apply contract rules to possession disputes rather than treating them as legal persons.
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…traditional definition of marriage is to “demea[n] or stigmatiz[e]” same-sex couples. Ante, at 19. The majority reiterates such characterizations over and over. By the majority’s account, Americans who did nothing more than follow the understanding of marriage that has existed for our entire history—in particular, the tens of…