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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Essential Roles Of Agency Law, Gabriel Rauterberg Feb 2020

The Essential Roles Of Agency Law, Gabriel Rauterberg

Michigan Law Review

This Article suggests a fundamental shift in how we think about agency. The essential function of agency law lies not only in enabling the delegation of authority, as is widely suggested, but as significantly in its effect on creditors’ rights through asset partitioning. There is an increasing temptation in legal scholarship to treat agency law as a sideshow confined to the first day of corporations class. This is because much of what agency law does in commerce could simply be accomplished through standard-form contracts that provide default terms for the relationships among firms, their managers, and third parties. Even agency’s …


War Is Governance: Explaining The Logic Of The Laws Of War From A Principal-Agent Perspective, Eyal Benvenisti, Amichai Cohen Jan 2014

War Is Governance: Explaining The Logic Of The Laws Of War From A Principal-Agent Perspective, Eyal Benvenisti, Amichai Cohen

Michigan Law Review

What is the purpose of the international law on armed conflict, and why would opponents bent on destroying each other’s capabilities commit to and obey rules designed to limit their choice of targets, weapons, and tactics? Traditionally, answers to this question have been offered on the one hand by moralists who regard the law as being inspired by morality and on the other by realists who explain this branch of law on the basis of reciprocity. Neither side’s answers withstand close scrutiny. In this Article, we develop an alternative explanation that is based on the principal–agent model of domestic governance. …


Why Governance Might Work In Mutual Funds, Michael C. Schouten May 2011

Why Governance Might Work In Mutual Funds, Michael C. Schouten

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The Supreme Court's recent decision in Jones v. Harris Associates L.P. has highlighted the potential for agency conflicts in mutual funds, whose advisors have the de facto power to award themselves high fees. While the surrounding debate has focused on the extent to which market competition replaces the need for fee litigation, there appears to be a growing consensus that fund governance, through the use of voice, is unlikely to be effective. The use of voice is commonly said to be hampered by collective action problems. More recently, scholars have argued that it is further weakened by the easy availability …


Agency, Code, Or Contract: Determining Employees' Authorization Under The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act, Katherine Mesenbring Field Mar 2009

Agency, Code, Or Contract: Determining Employees' Authorization Under The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act, Katherine Mesenbring Field

Michigan Law Review

The federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA ") provides for civil remedies against individuals who have accessed a protected computer without authorization or in excess of their authorization. With increasing numbers of employees using computers at work, employers have turned to the CFAA in situations where disloyal employees have pilfered company information from the employer's computer system. The vague language of the CFAA, however, has led courts to develop three different interpretations of "authorization" in these CFAA employment cases, with the result that factually similar cases in different courts can generate opposite outcomes in terms of employee liability under …


The Many Faces Of Fault In Contract Law: Or How To Do Economics Right, Without Really Trying, Richard A. Epstein Jan 2009

The Many Faces Of Fault In Contract Law: Or How To Do Economics Right, Without Really Trying, Richard A. Epstein

Michigan Law Review

Modern law often rests on the assumption that a uniform cost-benefit formula is the proper way to determine fault in ordinary contract disputes. This Article disputes that vision by defending the view that different standards of fault are appropriate in different contexts. The central distinction is one that holds parties in gratuitous transactions only to the standard of care that they bring to their own affairs, while insisting on the higher objective standard of ordinary care in commercial transactions. That bifurcation leads to efficient searches. Persons who hold themselves out in particular lines of business in effect warrant their ability …


Toward A Jurisprudence Of Cost-Benefit Analysis, Michael Abramowicz Jan 2002

Toward A Jurisprudence Of Cost-Benefit Analysis, Michael Abramowicz

Michigan Law Review

In 1989, Cass Sunstein published an article entitled On the Costs and Benefits of Aggressive Judicial Review of Agency Action. Sunstein apparently meant the words "costs" and "benefits" in an informal sense, as the article considered the advantages and disadvantages of aggressive judicial review without pretense of explicit quantification. That article was several generations ago in Sunstein scholarship, almost 100 articles and over a dozen books. The central concerns of that article, however, are relevant to an assessment of Sunstein's latest book, whose title, The Cost-Benefit State, uses the words "costs" and "benefits" as labels for quantitative assessments of the …


Ultra Vires Takings, Matthew D. Zinn Oct 1998

Ultra Vires Takings, Matthew D. Zinn

Michigan Law Review

When does legislative or administrative regulatory action "go[] too far" and effectively amount to an .appropriation of private property for which the Fifth Amendment requires just compensation? This question has turned out to be one of the thorniest in American constitutional law. The Supreme Court has identified several circumstances in which one can expect to find a regulatory taking, but its numerous pronouncements on the subject give no clear rule to distinguish compensable takings from noncompensable interference with property rights. Notwithstanding its volume, the commentary on the Takings Clause by and large addresses only proper governmental action that rises to …


United States V. O'Hagan: Agency Law And Justice Powell's Legacy For The Law Of Insider Trading, Adam C. Pritchard Jan 1998

United States V. O'Hagan: Agency Law And Justice Powell's Legacy For The Law Of Insider Trading, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

The law of insider trading is judicially created; no statutory provision explicitly prohibits trading on the basis of material, non-public information. The Supreme Court's insider trading jurisprudence was forged, in large part, by Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. His opinions for the Court in United States v. Chiarella and SEC v. Dirks were, until recently, the Supreme Court's only pronouncements on the law of insider trading. Those decisions established the elements of the classical theory of insider trading under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act"). Under this theory, corporate insiders and their tippees who …


Awarding Attorney's Fees To Pro Se Litigants Under Rule 11, Jeremy D. Spector Jun 1997

Awarding Attorney's Fees To Pro Se Litigants Under Rule 11, Jeremy D. Spector

Michigan Law Review

Among the myriad rules and statutes designed to curb litigation abuse, Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ("FRCP") is "the most widely used and most controversial of the sanctions rules." The increased use of Rule ll during the last fifteen years and the recent proliferation of fee-shifting provisions in federal statutes4 have led to an onslaught of motions for attorney's fees in the federal district courts. Simultaneously, these courts are seeing an increasing number of pro se litigants appear before them. The confluence of these two trends has produced the seemingly paradoxical result of pro se parties …


Caught Between Rocks And Hard Places: The Plight Of Reinsurance Intermediaries Under U.S. And English Law, Stephen W. Schwab, Peter G. Gallanis, David E. Mendelsohn, Bradley V. Ritter Jan 1995

Caught Between Rocks And Hard Places: The Plight Of Reinsurance Intermediaries Under U.S. And English Law, Stephen W. Schwab, Peter G. Gallanis, David E. Mendelsohn, Bradley V. Ritter

Michigan Journal of International Law

Accordingly, Part I of this article provides a review of the role intermediaries have played in the recent spate of insurance company insolvencies and an overview of intermediary rights and duties. Part II then progresses to a discussion of English intermediary law, analyzing how the general English rules apply to intermediaries when a cedent or reinsurer becomes insolvent. Part III addresses the same issues under U.S. law, tracing the most recent statutory developments from their cause and considering their effect on reinsurance transactions. This article concludes with a discussion of how English and U.S. law interact in reinsurance transactions, pointing …


Administrative Agencies, Joseph Vining Jan 1992

Administrative Agencies, Joseph Vining

Book Chapters

Administrative agencies, often called the ‘‘fourth branch,’’ are entities of government that make decisions within particular substantive fields. Although these fields range over the full spectrum of public concern, the specificity of agencies’ focus distinguishes them from other decision making entities in the constitutional structure—the judiciary, the presidency, the Congress, indeed the individual citizen—each of which can be taken to have a scope of interest as broad as imagination will allow.


Chinese Wall Or Emperor's New Clothes? Regulating Conflicts Of Interest Of Securities Firms In The U.S. And The U.K., Norman S. Poser Jan 1988

Chinese Wall Or Emperor's New Clothes? Regulating Conflicts Of Interest Of Securities Firms In The U.S. And The U.K., Norman S. Poser

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article has two principal theses. The first is that, while Chinese Walls of securities firms are undoubtedly useful in some instances in preventing the flow of confidential information, the evidence that they actually do this is insufficient to justify basing a legal defense on the existence of a wall in a particular firm. In fact, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that at some firms the Chinese Wall is nothing but a convenient fiction aimed at avoiding liability for market abuses. The article's second thesis is that the isolation of information within a department of a firm which …


Defining The Terms Of Academic Freedom: A Reply To Professor Rabban, Rebecca S. Eisenberg Jan 1988

Defining The Terms Of Academic Freedom: A Reply To Professor Rabban, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

I suspect Professor Rabban is right in saying that we have more than a semantic dispute. But it is difficult to identify our areas of substantive disagreement with any precision because of a major difference in the meanings that each of us ascribes to certain key words and phrases. The essence of my argument is as follows: What I call "the traditional American conception of academic freedom" justifies professional autonomy for faculty members as a means of furthering certain academic values. But the mechanism of faculty autonomy fails to protect these traditional academic values in the contemporary context of externally …


Academic Freedom And Academic Values In Sponsored Research, Rebecca S. Eisenberg Jan 1988

Academic Freedom And Academic Values In Sponsored Research, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

In this Article I examine the traditional American conception of academic freedom and analyze its implications for universities formulating policies on the acceptance of sponsored research. I begin by reviewing the basic policy statements of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) on academic freedom to identify both the academic values implicit in those statements and the assumptions about institutional relationships and individual incentives underlying their prescriptions for advancing those values. I then evaluate the validity of those underlying assumptions in contemporary sponsored research and argue that academic freedom as traditionally conceived might no longer effectively advance academic values in …


Imposters And Fictitious Payees, James J. White Jan 1976

Imposters And Fictitious Payees, James J. White

Other Publications

Uniform Commercial Code section 3-405. I. Basic Liabilities II. Defense and Miscellaneous Issues


Banks And Banking-Bank's Liability For Breach Of Its Duty To Corporate Depositor-Maley V. East Side Bank Of Chicago, Michigan Law Review Jan 1967

Banks And Banking-Bank's Liability For Breach Of Its Duty To Corporate Depositor-Maley V. East Side Bank Of Chicago, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The three stockholders of a close corporation contracted to sell all of the corporate stock to Shulman for $5,000 down and a balance of $17,000 in two notes payable in thirty days. A resolution filed with the defendant depositary bank provided that Paul, the former president, was to act as the interim treasurer for the corporation and was to cosign, with Shulman, all checks drawn on the corporate account until the balance of the purchase price was tendered. Approximately one week after the agreement was made, the bank received an inordinate number of inquiries regarding the credit of the corporation, …


Standing To Appeal Zoning Determinations: The "Aggrieved Person" Requirement, Alfred V. Boerner Apr 1966

Standing To Appeal Zoning Determinations: The "Aggrieved Person" Requirement, Alfred V. Boerner

Michigan Law Review

During the twentieth century the states have increasingly utilized their police power to control the use of land. All fifty states have now enacted zoning enabling legislation, much of which is based in whole or in part on the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act. Typically, these zoning acts, like the Standard Act, empower municipalities to promulgate land use regulations by dividing the municipality "into districts of such number, shape, and area as may be deemed best suited to carry out the purposes of this act ..." Most zoning acts specify that "all such regulations shall be uniform for each class …


Corporations-Officers And Directors-Liability For Representative Acts Under The Sherman Act, Leon E. Irish Jan 1963

Corporations-Officers And Directors-Liability For Representative Acts Under The Sherman Act, Leon E. Irish

Michigan Law Review

An indictment brought under section 1 of the Sherman Act charged appellee and the corporation that employed him with conspiracy to eliminate price competition in the greater Kansas City milk market. Appellee was charged solely, in his capacity as officer, director or agent of the corporation. The district court dismissed the indictment on the ground that natural persons are indictable under section 1 of the Sherman Act only for acts done on their own account. On direct appeal to the Supreme Court, held, reversed and remanded. A corporate officer is liable under section 1 of the Sherman Act whether …


Real Property - Liens - Husband's Contract For Improvements On Land Owned Jointly With Wife, Judd L. Bacon S.Ed. Nov 1960

Real Property - Liens - Husband's Contract For Improvements On Land Owned Jointly With Wife, Judd L. Bacon S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

A husband alone contracted for the construction of a house on property owned jointly with his wife. The wife inspected the progress of the work, took part in directing it, and later occupied the house. In an equity proceeding by the contractor to establish and enforce a mechanic's and materialman's lien on the premises for the balance due under the contract, the trial court rendered a decree for the contractor. On appeal, held, reversed. Since there was no showing that the husband contracted as an agent of the wife, and the evidence does not support a finding that she …


Taxation - Federal Income Tax - Commission Received By Life Insurance Agent On Policies Purchased By Him Held To Be Taxable Income, Roger W. Findley S.Ed. Dec 1959

Taxation - Federal Income Tax - Commission Received By Life Insurance Agent On Policies Purchased By Him Held To Be Taxable Income, Roger W. Findley S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Taxpayer was agent for eleven life insurance companies. From two of them he purchased policies on the lives of his business partner, three key employees, and his children. He paid the regular premiums and subsequently received standard first-year and renewal commissions. When taxpayer did not include these in his gross income, the Commissioner assessed deficiencies and was sustained by the district court, On appeal, held, affirmed. A commission received by a life insurance agent on a policy purchased by him is taxable income. Ostheimer v. United States, (3d Cir. 1959) 264 F. (2d) 789, cert. den. 80 S.Ct. …


Priorities: Ii, Edgar N. Durfee Mar 1959

Priorities: Ii, Edgar N. Durfee

Michigan Law Review

This is the second part of "Priorities" (also known as "Little Nemo") which was taken from Professor Durfee's teaching materials. The first part was published in the February issue-which was dedicated to the memory of Professor Durfee.


The Legal Nature Of Collective Bargaining Agreements, Archibald Cox Nov 1958

The Legal Nature Of Collective Bargaining Agreements, Archibald Cox

Michigan Law Review

One reflecting upon the legal nature of a collective bargaining agreement can hardly avoid beginning with the thought that the institution has flourished outside of the courts and administrative agencies and often in the face of legal interference. The law had fallen into disrepute in the world of labor relations because it failed to meet the needs of men. Collective bargaining agreements were negotiated and administered without regard to conventional legal sanctions. Grievance procedures and arbitration evolved into an intricate and highly organized, private judicature. Many experienced and perceptive observers argued that the conventional sanctions for commercial contracts should not …


Taxation - Federal Income Tax - Proceeds From Cancellation Of Contract Treated As Ordinary Income, Jerome B. Libin S.Ed. Jun 1958

Taxation - Federal Income Tax - Proceeds From Cancellation Of Contract Treated As Ordinary Income, Jerome B. Libin S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Taxpayer had the exclusive right for a period of ten years to purchase all the coal mined by the operator of certain mines. In 1949 the operator paid taxpayer $500,000 as consideration for the complete acquisition of taxpayer's right and interest in the purchase agreement. Taxpayer reported this sum as a long-term capital gain. The Commissioner claimed that the amount received was ordinary income. The Tax Court upheld taxpayer's contention, indicating that the transaction had resulted in the sale or exchange of a capital asset. On appeal by the Commissioner, held, reversed, one justice dissenting. This transaction was more …


Fiduciary Administration - Nominee Statutes - Transfer Of Securities Held For The Benefit Of Another, Joseph T. De Nicola Apr 1958

Fiduciary Administration - Nominee Statutes - Transfer Of Securities Held For The Benefit Of Another, Joseph T. De Nicola

Michigan Law Review

Michigan is the forty-second jurisdiction to enact a nominee statute. Nominee statutes authorize a fiduciary to nominate a third person to hold stock or securities in the third person's name without giving notice on the stock certificate or on the transfer books of the corporation of his qualified ownership. For the most part it has been assumed that these statutes would facilitate a more rapid transfer of securities. It is the purpose of this comment to compare and analyze these statutes and to determine whether they are the most effective means of accomplishing the end they are intended to serve.


Contracts - Statute Of Frauds - Signature Applicable To Only Part Of A Memorandum, George R. Haydon Jr. Jan 1958

Contracts - Statute Of Frauds - Signature Applicable To Only Part Of A Memorandum, George R. Haydon Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff buyer sought specific performance of an alleged contract for the sale of real estate. The instrument, denominated "deposit receipt," acknowledged receipt of the deposit, and then set forth the terms of the trade. This was signed "By Raymond Asmar," the alleged agent of the seller, in the place where the broker normally signs. Following this were two provisions. One, signed by plaintiff, stated that he agreed to purchase the property and that he confirmed the contract. A similar provision immediately following was not signed by defendant seller. The district court dismissed for failure to state a claim on which …


Fiduciary Administration - Compensation - Extra Compensation And The Rule Against Self-Dealing, David Shute Jan 1958

Fiduciary Administration - Compensation - Extra Compensation And The Rule Against Self-Dealing, David Shute

Michigan Law Review

Respondent was a member of a firm of certified public accountants who were actively engaged in assisting decedent work out his income tax difficulties at the time of his death. Under decedent's will respondent was named executor and trustee along with decedent's lawyer and a trust company. The executors employed respondent's partnership to perform services in connection with the estate. The surviving widow and life beneficiary of the estate filed objections to the account of the executors, urging that the rule against self-dealing on the part of fiduciaries precluded respondent from recovering for services performed as an accountant in addition …


Agency - Liability Of Principal For Termination Of Agents Employment, William G. Mateer S.Ed. Jun 1957

Agency - Liability Of Principal For Termination Of Agents Employment, William G. Mateer S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

In the summer of 1949, appellant entered into an oral contract for an indefinite time with the appellee whereby the former was granted an exclusive wholesale distributorship of appellee's farm and garden equipment. A four-year period followed in which appellant increased the number of dealers in appellee's product from four or five in 1949 to over one hundred in 1953. In the latter part of 1952 appellant contemplated an enlargement of its facilities which would require it to enter upon a fifteen-year lease. Since the lessor desired some assurances as to the duration of appellant's franchise, appellant wrote to appellee …


Agency - Apparent Authority - Liability Of Corporation On Unauthorized Note Of General Manager, Thomas A. Troyer Jan 1957

Agency - Apparent Authority - Liability Of Corporation On Unauthorized Note Of General Manager, Thomas A. Troyer

Michigan Law Review

Welch, the general manager, executive vice-president, treasurer, and director of petitioner corporation, requested that respondent, a salesman employed by the corporation, loan petitioner $25,000. Respondent complied, and Welch executed and delivered to respondent a note for the amount of the loan, signed by himself as vice-president and treasurer. After Welch had appropriated the money to his own uses, respondent obtained a judgment by confession against petitioner on the note. On trial of a petition to open the judgment, held, dismissed. Welch had acted with apparent authority in giving respondent petitioner's note, respondent had reasonably relied upon this appearance in …


Corporations - Stockholders - Fiduciary Relationship In Sale Of Controlling Stock Interest, Morton A. Polster S.Ed. Jan 1956

Corporations - Stockholders - Fiduciary Relationship In Sale Of Controlling Stock Interest, Morton A. Polster S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

This comment is concerned with the duty owed by the controlling stockholders to the non-controlling stockholders when there is a sale of the controlling interest. Recently this question was considered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Perlman v. Feldmann, and the opinion, reversing the lower court and accompanied by a vigorous dissent by Judge Swan, deserves careful consideration.


Responsibilities In The Transfer Of Stock, Francis T. Christy Mar 1955

Responsibilities In The Transfer Of Stock, Francis T. Christy

Michigan Law Review

During the past few years there have been increasing efforts on the part of a number of organized groups to establish statutory definitions of the responsibilities of corporations and their transfer agents in the transfer of stock. Among these groups are the Commission on Uniform State Laws, which sponsored the Uniform Fiduciaries Act, the American Law Institute and the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, which have jointly produced the new Uniform Commercial Code, the Committee on Simplification of Security Transfers of the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of the American Bar Association, of which Committee …