His conviction for theft overturned hundreds of years of legal precedent that had said the body was not property and so could not be owned or stolen.
In what became one of the most important trials in legal history, the Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, Lord Mansfield, ruled that Somerset was not property but, instead, a legal person, and Somerset was set free.
The court of appeals not only held that the office of governor or of lieutenant governor was not property under the Constitution of Kentucky; but, moreover, that court was of opinion that the decision of these contested elections did not deprive plaintiffs in error of any pre-existing right.
The IRS responded that HDL's tax status was not "property", and thus the adversary suit should be dismissed as to those claims.
Once slavery was abolished, when a Negro was not property any longer, he was a citizen.
The opinion affirmed the state court of appeals' assertion that an elective office was not property.
