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Articles 1 - 17 of 17

Full-Text Articles in Law

William J. Pierce, Lawrence J. Bugge Aug 1991

William J. Pierce, Lawrence J. Bugge

Michigan Law Review

A tribute to William J. Pierce


On The Need For A Uniform Choice Of Law Code, Larry Kramer Aug 1991

On The Need For A Uniform Choice Of Law Code, Larry Kramer

Michigan Law Review

At first blush, the notion of a uniform choice of law code seems almost paradoxical. After all, the primary mission of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) is to promote uniformity in the law, while choice of law exists only because laws are not uniform. To be sure, the Constitution of the NCCUSL limits the organization's objective to promoting uniformity "where uniformity is desirable and practicable," which leaves plenty of room for different laws and hence for choice of law. But even so, one would expect the Commissioners to devote their limited resources to reducing the …


Discretion, Rules, And Law: Child Custody And The Umda's Best-Interest Standard, Carl E. Schneider Aug 1991

Discretion, Rules, And Law: Child Custody And The Umda's Best-Interest Standard, Carl E. Schneider

Michigan Law Review

One barrier facing any attempt to devise a uniform law for diverse jurisdictions is the occasional - perhaps even frequent - difficulty of writing rules that will accurately guide judges. The law's ordinary solution to that difficulty is to give judges some measure of discretion. This article inquires into the nature and legitimacy of that technique. It does so by analyzing a particularly controversial provision of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act (UMDA). Section 402 of that Act states: "The court shall determine custody in accordance with the best interest of the child." It then instructs the court to "consider …


Interpreting Codes, Bruce W. Frier Aug 1991

Interpreting Codes, Bruce W. Frier

Michigan Law Review

Large systematically codified bodies of law, such as the European codes or the UCC, gradually effect, or at least encourage, a different kind of legal culture, in which, as such codes are integrated within a national legal heritage, general clauses and principles become more salient within an expanded interpretive community. Because of the open texture of their rules, codes foster an altered legal posture; ancient judicial vigilance against the intrusive legislation may give way to a new ethos of cooperation in the development of law. To be sure, it remains uncertain whether the resulting law will be, in fact, "better," …


Market-Share Liability After Hymowitz And Conley: Exploring The Limits Of Judicial Power, Christopher J. Mcguire May 1991

Market-Share Liability After Hymowitz And Conley: Exploring The Limits Of Judicial Power, Christopher J. Mcguire

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note surveys the development of market-share liability and examines the limits on the power of state and federal courts to impose liability on defendants through market-share liability. Part I examines briefly the development of market-share liability in the early 1980s. It then explores how the New York Court of Appeals extended market-share liability in Hymowitz v. Eli Lilly and explores this case's ramifications. Part I also draws on a recent Florida case, Conley v. Boyle Drug Co., for further insight into the problems surrounding market-share liability litigation. Part II argues that jurisdictional limitations, such as standing to sue …


Sound Governance And Sound Law, Colin S. Diver May 1991

Sound Governance And Sound Law, Colin S. Diver

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Administrative Law: Rethinking Judicial Control of Bureaucracy by Christopher F. Edley, Jr.


The Power Line Health Controversy: Legal Problems And Proposals For Reform, Philip S. Mccune Jan 1991

The Power Line Health Controversy: Legal Problems And Proposals For Reform, Philip S. Mccune

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note examines the primary means of compensating individuals whose property is affected by EMFs from nearby power lines: eminent-domain and inverse-condemnation proceedings. Although power lines adversely affect property values in several ways, 6 fear of the potential health problems caused by power lines has had the greatest impact.' v Part I evaluates the three approaches that courts have developed to determine whether plaintiffs can recover for the effect of public fears of EMFs on property values. This Part concludes that although testimony about the biological effects of EMFs should be inadmissible, property owners should be able …


The Impact Of Public Abortion Funding Decisions On Lndigent Women: A Proposal To Reform State Statutory And Constitutional Abortion Funding Provisions, Carole A. Corns Jan 1991

The Impact Of Public Abortion Funding Decisions On Lndigent Women: A Proposal To Reform State Statutory And Constitutional Abortion Funding Provisions, Carole A. Corns

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that state legislatures should relax funding restrictions on abortions for indigent women and proposes specific mechanisms to ensure the equal protection of indigent women in the abortion context. Part I briefly recounts the history of federal funding for abortions, from the liberal post-Roe funding scheme to the restrictive funding arrangements that have prevailed since the early 1980s. Part II surveys the existing literature and discusses patterns of state funding and the impact of funding restrictions on indigent women seeking abortions. This literature shows that the tightening of state funding policies subsequent to the federal Medicaid restrictions has …


Self-Determination, Minority Rights, And Constitutional Accommodation: The Example Of The Czech And Slovak Federal Republic, Claudia Saladin Jan 1991

Self-Determination, Minority Rights, And Constitutional Accommodation: The Example Of The Czech And Slovak Federal Republic, Claudia Saladin

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I of this note will explore the concepts of self-determination and minority rights in international law and their development over time. This is particularly relevant to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, because these concepts saw their first full flowering in the period during and following the First World War, when those countries gained their independence from the European powers. Part II will discuss the evolution of the constitutional relationship between the Czechs and the Slovaks from the constitution of the first Czechoslovak Republic to the current constitutional reforms of the CSFR. This analysis will show the emerging …


Review Of The Province Of Legislation Determined: Legal Theory In Eighteenth-Century Britain, Thomas A. Green Jan 1991

Review Of The Province Of Legislation Determined: Legal Theory In Eighteenth-Century Britain, Thomas A. Green

Reviews

David Lieberman's lucid and sure-footed reinterpretationof late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century jurisprudence is original, thoughtful, analytically acute, and a pleasure to read. Lieberman argues that Bentham's law reform ideas must be viewed in relation to earlier (and contemporary) reform traditions. Bentham's views were more complex than the long-held myth would have it, partly because they were more derivative, at least in his early enterprises, combining as they did a reception of earlier notions with the novelty for which he is usually credited. Blackstone and Mansfield, on this account, were not the match stick figures they are sometimes made out to be; the …


The Czechoslovak Approach To The Draft Convention On Jurisdictional Immunitites Of States And Their Property, Vladimir Balaš, Monika Pauknerová Jan 1991

The Czechoslovak Approach To The Draft Convention On Jurisdictional Immunitites Of States And Their Property, Vladimir Balaš, Monika Pauknerová

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article deals with four issues: (1) The effort of the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify jurisdictional immunity. (2) The theoretical and practical Czechoslovak approach toward the institution of jurisdictional immunity of States and the Draft Convention, and a prediction of possible change of the Czechoslovak view. (3) The changing views of East European scholars. (4) An analysis of particular provisions of the Draft Convention with respect to their acceptability by States with different socioeconomic systems and especially by Czechoslovakia.


Expert Evidence, Samuel R. Gross Jan 1991

Expert Evidence, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

It seems that the use of expert witnesses in common law courts has always been troublesome. In his Treatise on the Law of Evidence, first published in 1848, Judge John Pitt Taylor describes several classes of witnesses whose testimony should be viewed with caution, including: enslaved people (which accounts for "the lamentable neglect of truth, which is evinced by most of the nations of India, by the subjects of the Czar, and by many of the peasantry in Ireland"); women (because they are more susceptible to "an innate vain love of the marvelous"); and "foreigners and others ... living out …


William J. Pierce, Lawrence W. Waggoner Jan 1991

William J. Pierce, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Betty and Bill Pierce sit next to my wife, Lynne, and me at Michigan football games. But you know what? As often as not, neither Betty nor Bill is there. They are in Denver, or Atlanta, or Chicago, or Philadelphia, or Washington, or Boston, or Los Angeles, or some other city where one or more drafting committees of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (the Conference) are meeting. Betty and Bill have been doing this at least since 1969, when Bill became the executive director of the Conference. Before taking that position, he had served as the …


The Multiple-Marriage Society And Spousal Rights Under The Revised Uniform Probate Code, Lawrence W. Waggoner Jan 1991

The Multiple-Marriage Society And Spousal Rights Under The Revised Uniform Probate Code, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Nearly everyone knows about the transformation of the American family that has taken place over the last couple of decades. The changes, from the latter half of the 1970s into the present, comprise one of the great events of our age. Articles on one aspect or another of the phenomenon frequent the popular press, and a special edition of Newsweek was recently devoted to the topic.' The traditional "Leave It To Beaver" family no longer prevails in American society. To be sure, families consisting of a wage-earning husband, a homemaking and child-rearing wife, and their two joint children still exist. …


Absolute Priority And New Value, James J. White Jan 1991

Absolute Priority And New Value, James J. White

Articles

This paper is based on a lecture given on December 6, 1990 ast the Second Annual Robert E. Krinock Lecture. The absolute priority rule is a specific application of the broader doctrine that reorganization plans must be "fair and equitable." Both have their origins in the railroad reorganization cases of the early 20th century. The general doctrine is now codified in section 1129(b)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code and the rule is codified in subsection 1129(b)(2)(B)(ii) which provides that the debtor must pay a nonconsenting class of unsecured creditors in full or "the holder of any claim or interest that is …


Ex Proprio Vigore, James J. White Jan 1991

Ex Proprio Vigore, James J. White

Articles

The National Conference of the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) is a legislature in every way but one. It drafts uniform acts, debates them, passes them, and promulgates them, but that passage and promulgation do not make these uniform acts law over any citizen of any state. These acts become the law of the various states only ex proprio vigore - only if their own vitality influences the legislators of the various states to pass them.


Commentary: Meeting The Financial Needs Of Children, David L. Chambers Jan 1991

Commentary: Meeting The Financial Needs Of Children, David L. Chambers

Articles

Those who drafted the equitable distribution statutes adopted in New York and elsewhere wanted to help assure women and children an acceptable level of financial well-being after divorce. Marsha Garrison has shown that divorcing couples rarely possess enough resources to attain financial well-being even when they live together as a couple, let alone when they live in two separate households. She has also shown that, even in the cases of couples with substantial assets, the broad and general language of the equitable distribution statute did not lead (and could not have been expected to lead) to consistent distributions that assured …