The whole legal argument is explained in a US Court of Appeals ruling that can be read at http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/48/48.F3d.362.94-1647.html. Jonathan Swift, the great Irish satirist/author, wrote over three centuries ago (and I'm paraphrasing) that the purpose of a laywer was to prove that a field that had been in my family for five-hundred years was not actually mine, but belonged to a man living a thousand miles away who had never actually seen the field nor set foot upon it. I guess Swiftian legal logic applied in this case, too! -- Jim Huffman