Also known as: jura quaesita · acquired right · vested right
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A right that has been fully acquired and vested in the holder by prior lawful conduct or reliance. The right is protected against subsequent governmental action that would impair it without due process or compensation.
Imperial Buildings operated a forty-year-old mobile home park that became nonconforming after rezoning. The company had spent over eight hundred thousand dollars on upgrades under a valid permit before the city revoked the permit and imposed a ten-year amortization period. Because the expenditures created a vested right, the court held that the city could not immediately terminate the use without further individualized review of reasonableness.
Jillian James obtained a valid building permit under existing zoning and spent substantial sums constructing the foundation and utilities for a new warehouse. When the city later rezoned the area and attempted to revoke the permit, the court recognized her vested right because the good-faith expenditures made deprivation of the right inequitable.
After a car accident in Wisconsin, the plaintiff sought to apply Wisconsin law to a family immunity issue. The court recognized that the parties' rights under the law of the place of the wrong had become vested at the time of the accident and therefore controlled the outcome despite later changes in residence.
The plaintiff, Mrs. Haumschild, and her husband were domiciled in Wisconsin at all relevant times. Wisconsin is both the state of the forum and of the domicile while California is the state where the alleged wrong was committed. While the couple was traveling in California, Mrs. Haumschild sustained personal injuries in an automobile accident that was allegedly caused by her husband's negligence. She subsequently commenced an action in Wisconsin circuit court against her husband and Continental Casualty Company, his insurer, seeking damages for those injuries. The defendants asserted that California law barred a wife from suing her husband in tort and therefore precluded recovery. The circuit court rendered judgment against the plaintiff on that ground. The plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. The appeal was argued before the Supreme Court of Wisconsin on March 2, 1959. On April 10, 1959, the court reversed the judgment in an opinion authored by Justice Currie, with Justice Fairchild filing a separate concurrence joined by Justice Brown.
View caseA state legislature attempted to reopen a probate decree that had already become final. The court held that the decree created a vested right in the successful party that the legislature could not divest through retroactive legislation.
The grandson Normand Morrison executed his will on August 21, 1779. On March 21, 1793, the Court of Probate for Hartford County disapproved the will and refused to record it. More than eighteen months elapsed from this decree, during which the right of appeal was lost under Connecticut law. There was no law in Connecticut allowing a new hearing before the court of probate except through special legislative action. On the second Thursday of May 1795, the Legislature of Connecticut passed a resolution setting aside the March 1793 decree of the Court of Probate. The resolution granted a new hearing before the same court of probate with liberty of appeal in six months. This resolution was passed after the time for appeal from the original decree had expired. A new hearing occurred on July 27, 1795, resulting in the court of probate approving the will and ordering it recorded. An appeal followed in August 1795 to the Superior Court at Hartford, which affirmed the decree in February 1796. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut then reviewed the case and in June 1796 confirmed the judgment of the Superior Court. Calder and his wife asserted a claim to the premises as the heiress of Normand Morrison the physician. Bull and his wife asserted their claim under the will of Normand Morrison the grandson. The matter came before the United States Supreme Court for review of the state court proceedings.
View caseA state college professor claimed a property interest in continued employment after receiving tenure under university rules. The court determined that the rules had created a vested right that could not be terminated without due process.
In 1968 the Board of Regents of State Colleges hired David Roth as an assistant professor of political science at Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh for a fixed term running from September 1, 1968, to June 30, 1969. The formal notice of appointment stated that the employment basis was the academic year. It provided that regulations governing tenure followed Wisconsin Statutes Chapter 37.31. Roth was informed before he began teaching that he had no tenure rights and would be rehired for the 1969-1970 academic year only if the University chose to retain him. Under Wisconsin law a teacher could acquire tenure as a permanent employee only after four years of continuous service. The Board of Regents' rules established February 1 as the deadline for written notification of non-retention for nontenured faculty. No reason for non-retention need be given and no review or appeal is provided in such case. In conformance with these rules the University president notified Roth before February 1, 1969, that he would not be rehired. Roth received no statement of reasons and no opportunity to challenge the decision. Roth brought this action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. He alleged that the failure to provide reasons and a hearing violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to procedural due process. He also alleged that the non-renewal decision was actually retaliation for statements critical of the University administration that violated his First Amendment rights. The District Court granted summary judgment for Roth on the procedural due process claim. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The Board of Regents petitioned for a writ of certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted.
View caseAfter a district court entered final judgment dismissing a securities claim, Congress enacted a statute purporting to revive the dismissed action. The court held that the final judgment had created a vested right in the defendant that Congress could not retroactively alter.
In 1987 petitioners filed a civil action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky against respondents. The complaint alleged that respondents had committed fraud and deceit in the sale of stock in 1983 and 1984 in violation of section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5. The District Court dismissed the action as time barred under the then-applicable Kentucky statute of limitations. While petitioners' appeal was pending in the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court decided Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow v. Gilbertson on June 20, 1991. The next day the Court applied that decision to dismiss another pending appeal. The Sixth Circuit remanded petitioners' case to the District Court for further proceedings in light of Lampf. On August 13, 1991, the District Court dismissed the action with prejudice under the Lampf statute of limitations. Petitioners filed no appeal, and the judgment became final thirty days later on December 18, 1991. On December 19, 1991, the President signed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991. Section 476 of that Act added section 27A to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Subsection (b) provides that any private civil action under section 10(b) commenced on or before June 19, 1991, which was dismissed as time barred after that date and which would have been timely under the limitation period provided by the laws applicable in the jurisdiction as such laws existed on June 19, 1991, shall be reinstated on motion by the plaintiff not later than sixty days after December 19, 1991. Petitioners promptly filed a motion under section 27A(b) to reinstate their action. The District Court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA landowner acquires a jus quaesitum by establishing a lawful use before a later zoning change renders it nonconforming. The right protects continuation of the use unless lost through abandonment or a reasonable amortization period.
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Substantial good-faith expenditures made in reliance on a valid permit or existing zoning create a jus quaesitum. Jurisdictions differ on whether substantial completion or a balancing test is required.
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Yes, in some jurisdictions a reasonable amortization ordinance can require termination of a nonconforming use after a defined period. Reasonableness turns on the nature of the use, the owner's investment, and the time allowed.
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…particular uses without paying compensation, notwithstanding the economic impact, under the rationale that no one can obtain a vested right to injure or endanger the public. In the Coates cases, for example, the Supreme Court of New York found no taking in New York's ban on the interment of the dead within the city, although…