Law Commons^™

Section 301 And The Primary Jurisdiction Of The Nlrb, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Several labor cases recently decided by the Supreme Court have brought into issue a conflict between the NLRB's primary jurisdiction over matters subject to sections 7 and 8 of the NLRA and the doctrine that courts have jurisdiction to enforce collective agreements. Professor Sovern discusses these cases and argues that the Court properly decided that the principle of exclusive NLRB jurisdiction should yield in suits on collective agreements, but he criticizes the Court for not having articulated a satisfactory rationale in support of this result. After an analysis of the doctrine of preemption, he considers five types of labor-contract suits …

The National Labor Relations Act And Racial Discrimination, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

When the United States Commission on Civil Rights completed its recent study of discrimination in employment, its findings began on the same depressing note sounded by virtually every student of the problem since the end of slavery:

[N]egro workers are still disproportionately concentrated in the ranks of the unskilled and semiskilled in both private and public employment. They are also disproportionately represented among the unemployed because of their concentration in unskilled and semi-skilled jobs-those most severely affected by both cyclical and structural unemployment-and because Negro workers often have relatively low seniority. These difficulties are due in some degree to present …

The Constitution And Occupational Licensing In Massachusetts, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Judges have long recognized that the right to earn a living in any of the common occupations is among those fundamental interests which a democratic society should protect. Justice Bradley characterized it as an "inalienable right," and Justice Douglas asserted that it is "the most precious liberty that man possesses." Indeed, Mr. Justice Field viewed protection of this right as one of the distinguishing features of our republican institutions. That the right to earn a living is generally within the protective mantle of the Fourteenth Amendment is now long settled constitutional doctrine. Writing for a unanimous court in 1915, Mr. …

Constructive Trust And Equitable Lien: Status Of The Conscious And The Innocent Wrongdoer In Equity, Henry P. Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

The field of restitution, broadly considered, involves all those situations in which a person who holds property (or has consumed it) must deliver it (or its value) to the claimant in order to prevent the unjust enrichment of the holder. In this sense the ancient common law writs for the recovery of chattels or their value (detinue, replevin, and trover) and land (ejectment) are perceived to be restitutionary in character. A more modem development in the law courts, the allowance of quasi-contractual relief upon the common counts in general assumpsit, rests upon the same basis. In a leading English case, …

Delay And The Dynamics Of Personal Injury Litigation, Maurice Rosenberg, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Delayed justice is one of man's stubborn maladies. Just as stubborn is' man himself, and this has led him to persist in prescribing for the delay affliction instead of trying to understand it. Today there are still those who believe that solution can precede understanding and that what this country needs is a good five-cent "cure" for delay. Happily, others have recognized the need to put first things first. All through the country more and more groups are at work methodically getting the facts that are essential to understanding what is wrong and what is needed. The Columbia University Project …

International Trade And Economic Expansion, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

The recent literature on the effects of economic expansion on international trade has been concerned with two principal problems: the impact of the expansion on the terms of trade; and the resultant change in the welfare of the trading nations. The solutions offered, however, are not fully satisfactory. Thus H. G. Johnson [5) and W. M. Corden [3], who attempt to tackle the first problem, succeed only in establishing the direction, as distinct from the extent, of the consequential shift in the terms of trade. In so far as the full impact of the expansion on the terms of trade …

Section 4 Of The Bankruptcy Act: The Excluded Corporations, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

Section 4 of the Bankruptcy Act excludes from both voluntary and involuntary bankruptcy municipal, railroad, insurance and banking corporations and building and loan associations, and excludes from involuntary bankruptcy corporations that are not "moneyed, business or commercial." The exclusion of railroad and municipal corporations lost much of its significance when special reorganization provisions were enacted for those corporations. Insurance and banking corporations and building and loan associations, on the other hand, are excluded from the Bankruptcy Act's corporate reorganization chapters as well as from straight bankruptcy; and creditors can no more compel a corporation that is not moneyed, business or …

"Public Policy" In The Conflict Of Laws, Monrad G. Paulsen, Michael I. Sovern

Faculty Scholarship

In deciding a conflict of laws question, a judge will sometimes say, "The foreign law ordinarily applicable will not be applied in this case because to do so would violate our public policy." The textwriters, language in the cases, and the Restatement agree: the "normal" operation of choice of law rules is subject to a "public policy" limitation. This paper is an attempt to explore the meanings and significance of "public policy," used in this general way, in the conflict of laws.