The Taylor Ranch controversy is one of those nasty points of intersection between economics, politics, and the judiciary. In 2002, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that a series of landowners who border the Taylor Ranch had the right to continue doing what they had been doing for about 150 years, namely, freeloading off the Taylor Ranch resources. We had the chance to interview Dick Johnston, author of The Taylor Ranch War, which follows the 40-year (!) series of lawsuits required to resolve this issue.
In essence, the court ruled that the communal rules of the original Mexican land grant from the 1830s and 1840s overrode the American notion of exclusive use.
It hadn't occurred to me before, but is it possible that communal property right could be an answer to the question, "Why is Mexico so poor?"