MUGWE: Ukombozi name a property-law lesson for Linda Mwananchi

On December 10, 1802, 25-year-old Lodowick Post was hunting a fox across a stretch of wild, uninhabited beach on Long Island, New York. As Post and his hounds closed in, 22-year-old schoolteacher Jesse Pierson was walking home when he spotted the fox hiding in a hole, killed it with a fence rail and walked off with the carcass.

Post sued him. Decided in 1805, Pierson v. Post became one of the most widely taught cases in in property law. This was not because the fox itself was especially valuable and worth fighting over, but because the dispute forced a New York court to confront a question every legal system of property must eventually resolve.