{"id":287,"date":"2006-11-12T20:10:30","date_gmt":"2006-11-13T00:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/11\/12\/not-that-kind-of-legal-self-help\/"},"modified":"2006-11-20T11:38:44","modified_gmt":"2006-11-20T15:38:44","slug":"not-that-kind-of-legal-self-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/11\/12\/not-that-kind-of-legal-self-help\/","title":{"rendered":"not that<\/i> kind of legal self-help?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"towTruck\"\u00a0For lawyers, law students, and their professors, the “law of self-help<\/em>” is a different concept than shlep<\/em>‘s notion of “self-help law.”\u00a0 Rather than our focus on individuals using “self-help law” materials and activity to solve legal problems or engage in litigation without involving lawyers, the traditional legal doctrine of self-help refers to:<\/p>\n

“obtaining relief or enforcing one’s rights without resorting to legal action, such as repossessing a car when payments have not been made, retrieving borrowed or stolen goods, demanding and receiving payment or abating a nuisance (such as digging a ditch to divert flooding from another’s property). Self-help is legal as long as it does not “break the public peace” or violate some other law (although brief trespass is common) . .\u00a0.” (<\/font>Law.com Dictionary<\/font><\/em><\/a>)<\/font><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The “law of self-help” is, therefore,\u00a0concerned with understanding\u00a0whether, when, or how\u00a0a person can engage in direct self-help activity without violating the law.\u00a0\u00a0It is usually accepted that using violence or otherwise “breaking the public peace” is not permitted under the law of self-help.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A farmer might engage lawfully in self-help, for instance, if one of his cows meanders into a neighbor’s field — by entering the pasture and fetching his cow, despite a technical trespass.\u00a0\u00a0 On the other hand, the\u00a0North Dakotan\u00a0who recently “helped himself to a 600-pound, black-and-white-faced steer” belonging to someone else, butchering it right there on the spot (Bismark Tribune<\/a><\/em>, Nov. 7, 2006), was certainly acting outside the doctrine. More problematic, would be the behavior of the new Nicaraguan president-elect Daniel Ortega, who we are told<\/a> “helped himself to a prime\u00a0slice of expropriated real estate” before being voted out of office in 1990<\/p>\n

\"RepoManN\"\u00a0Many Baby Boomers and GenXers got their introduction to the law of self-help in the 1984 cult classic movie Repo Man<\/a><\/em>, starring Emilio Estevez.\u00a0 Those studying Contracts Law\u00a0or the Uniform Commercial Code might, indeed, enjoy arguing over which instances of self-help in that film were within the law.\u00a0\u00a0The “recovery experts” listed in RepoMan.com<\/a>‘s Repossession Directory<\/em>\u00a0should be familiar with the particulars of the law of self-help, too.\u00a0\u00a0For a very good introduction to the theory, history, and\u00a0current state of the self-help doctirne, see “Self-Help in Contract Law<\/em><\/a>: An Exploration and Proposal<\/em>,” 33 Wake Forest Law Review (839 – 907 (1988), by U. Denver Law Professor Celia R. Taylor.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Prof. Taylor notes: “The situations in which self-help may be invoked and the actions which may be taken are as varied as human imagination and ingenuity. A few common examples of self-help include the withholding of rent by a tenant when the leased premises are not suitably maintained and repossession of goods when payment for them is not timely rendered.”\u00a0 She stresses that “Although self-help is non-judicial, it is not extra-legal and does not lie outside the “shadow of the law.”\u00a0 Rather, “it is part of a seamless web of the law.”<\/p>\n

\"RepoMan\"\u00a0Since starting this weblog, I have\u00a0wanted to write this post, explaining that our<\/em> “self-help law” concept is not that<\/em> “law of self-help.”\u00a0 However, I’m having second thoughts about the supposed dichotomy.\u00a0 Solving your own legal\u00a0disputes by\u00a0using self-help educational materials, to learn about and then directly assert your rights — without involving a third party —\u00a0is different by degree, but not by nature, from the traditional self-help doctrine.\u00a0 (Examples might be\u00a0a dispute with a landlord, mechanic, or shopowner.)\u00a0 \u00a0Both aspects of legal “self-help” involve an attempt to solve a dispute as expeditiously and inexpensively as possible, without yielding control to others in the process of finding a solution.<\/p>\n

In that context, I leave you with the introductory paragraph in Prof. Taylor’s Self-Help article (footnotes omitted):\u00a0<\/p>\n

Americans are too litigious.\u00a0Every small spat seems to end up in the courthouse where it drains judicial resources, takes far too long to resolve, and leaves all involved unhappy. So goes the common refrain, and there is probably some truth to it.\u00a0\u00a0What this view ignores, however, is that many disputes never reach the courthouse. In a wide spectrum of controversies, a typical reaction to trouble is to attempt to remedy the situation privately through the exercise of “self-help.” The term “self-help” refers to private actions taken by those interested in the controversy to prevent or resolve disputes without official assistance of a governmental official or disinterested third party. The misperception of the unduly litigious nature of Americans could be minimized if more explicit recognition were given to self-help, a practice already prevalent in our law.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0For lawyers, law students, and their professors, the “law of self-help” is a different concept than shlep‘s notion of “self-help law.”\u00a0 Rather than our focus on individuals using “self-help law” materials and activity to solve legal problems or engage in litigation without involving lawyers, the traditional legal doctrine of self-help refers to: “obtaining relief or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[896,900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources-consumer","category-viewpoint"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}