Law Commons^™

Madeira Serves As Legal Commentator In Netflix’S “Our Father”, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

No abstract provided.

Illusory Privacy, Thomas Haley

Indiana Law Journal

For decades, regulators, consumer advocates, and privacy theorists have grappled with one of privacy’s most important questions: how to protect private information that consumers unwittingly give away with the click of an “I accept” button. Reform efforts remain mired in a morass of text, focusing on the increasing volume and complexity of firms’ terms of service and privacy policies. This Article moves beyond such existing approaches. By analyzing terms of service and privacy policies from hundreds of top websites—which this Article calls “platform terms”—this Article demonstrates that the prevailing “notice and consent” paradigm of privacy regulation cannot provide meaningful protection. …

Regulating Noncompetes Beyond The Common Law: The Uniform Restrictive Employment Agreement Act, Stewart J. Schwab

Indiana Law Journal

The common law has never treated a post-employment noncompete agreement between employer and employee like an ordinary contract. Rather, a court will enforce a noncompete only if it is reasonably tailored in time, geography, and scope of business to further a legitimate employer interest. Suppressing competition is an understandable but not legitimate interest.

While the common-law approach works well enough for some occupations, it is problematic for both workers and employers in many cases. It is a challenge for workers who don’t know about the noncompete until after starting work, for lowwage workers who are unlikely to have trade secrets …

Do Social Movements Spur Corporate Change? The Rise Of “Metoo Termination Rights” In Ceo Contracts, Rachel Arnow-Richman, James Hicks, Steven Davidoff Solomon

Indiana Law Journal

Do social movements spur corporate change? This Article sheds new empirical and theoretical light on the issue through an original study of executive contracts before and after MeToo. The MeToo movement, beginning in late 2017, exposed a workplace culture seemingly permissive of high-level, sex-based misconduct. Companies typically responded slowly and imposed few consequences on perpetrators, often allowing them to depart with lucrative exit packages. Why did companies reward rather than penalize bad actors, and has the movement disrupted this culture of complicity?

The passage of time since the height of the movement allows us to investigate these issues empirically, using …

Enforcing Outbound Forum Selection Clauses In State Court, John Coyle, Katherine Robinson

Indiana Law Journal

Forum selection clauses are a staple of modern business law. Parties agree, ex ante, on where they can sue one another and then rely on the courts to enforce these agreements. Although the number of contracts containing forum selection clauses has skyrocketed in recent years, there is a dearth of empirical information about enforcement practice at the state level. Are there any states that refuse to enforce them? How frequently are they enforced? Under what circumstances, if any, will these clauses be deemed unenforceable? The existing literature provides few answers to these questions.

This Article aims to fill that gap. …

Reproductive Contracts: An Analysis Of Reproductive Treatments, A Critique Of Forms Of Informed Consent, And Prevention Of Circumvention Of Medical Tourism, Minsung Kim

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

The goal of the dissertation is to analyze reproductive medicine, criticize informed consent forms for receiving reproductive treatments, and imply prevention of circumvention of medical tourism. Most of all, the dissertation considers a theoretical approach regarding how we understand reproductive treatments. The dissertation divides reproductive treatments into sustainable and disruptive ones. Reproductive treatments referred to as sustainable ones have legally become pervasive after regulatory evaluations concerning safety, ethical, and legal concerns. However, a few reproductive treatments that are referred to as disruptive ones still have led to disputes regarding whether infertility couples can require and receive them for treatment. The …

Contract Law’S Transferability Bias, Paul Macmahon

Indiana Law Journal

When A makes a contract with B, it comes as no surprise that she is liable to B. If B can transfer her contractual rights to C, A is now liable to C. Parties in A’s position often have strong reasons to avoid being liable to suit by C. Contract law, however, seems determined to minimize and override these concerns. Under current doctrine on the assignment of contractual rights—the focus of this Article—the law often imposes its own preference for transferability on the parties. The law generally assumes that contractual rights are assignable, construes exceptions to that general rule narrowly, …

The Right To Access To Justice: Its Conceptual Architecture, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The aim of this article is descriptive and analytical, rather than normative. This article aims to contribute to the current understanding of the ways in which modern legal consciousness builds, and is built by, the concept of access to justice. This concept, as part of the web of meanings that structures modern legal culture, provides the context in which modern subjects make sense of who they are and how they should interact with the world around them. This article examines the subjectivities, conceptual geographies, and interpretations of history created by the right to access to justice. It also examines a …

Arbitration And The Federal Balance, Alyssa King

Indiana Law Journal

Mandatory arbitration of statutory rights in contracts between parties of unequal bargaining power has drawn political attention at both the federal and state level. The importance of such reforms has only been heightened by the Supreme Court’s expansion of preemption under the FAA and of arbitral authority. This case law creates incentives for courts at all levels to prefer expansive readings of an arbitration clause. As attempts at federal regulation have stalled, state legislatures and regulatory agencies can expect to be subject to renewed focus. If state legislatures cannot easily limit arbitrability, an alternative is to try reforms that seek …

Boilerplate Indignity, Erik Encarnacion

Indiana Law Journal

Commentators have long tried to sound the alarm about boilerplate contracts, pointing out threats ranging from the loss of privacy rights to the erosion of public law and democratic self-governance. This Article argues that this list of concerns misses something important: that imposing certain boilerplate terms on individuals is incompatible with their dignity. After explaining and defending the conception of dignity presupposed here, this Article shows how boilerplate accountability waivers—like arbitration clauses—prevent people from accessing the distinctive dignity-vindicating role of courts and degrade their status as legal persons. And because governments may legitimately protect dignity interests, proposed reforms like the …

Protecting Consumers As Sellers, Jim Hawkins

Indiana Law Journal

When the majority of modern contract and consumer protection laws were written in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, consumers almost always acted as buyers, and businesses almost always acted as sellers. As a result, these laws reflect a model of strong sellers and weak buyers. But paradigms are shifting. Advances in technology and constraints on consumers’ financial lives have pushed consumers into new roles. Consumers today often act as sellers—hawking gold to make ends meet, peddling durable goods on eBay, or offering services in the sharing economy to make a profit. Consumers and business models have changed, but the laws …

Bitcoin: Order Without Law In The Digital Age, John O. Mcginnis, Kyle Roche

Indiana Law Journal

Modern law makes currency a creature of the state and ultimately the value of its currency depends on the public’s trust in that state. While some nations are more capable than others at instilling public trust in the stability of their monetary institutions, it is nonetheless impossible for any legal system to make the pre-commitments necessary to completely isolate the governance of its money supply from political pressure. This proposition is true not only today, where nearly all government institutions manage their money supply in the form of central banking, but also true of past private banking regimes circulating their …

The Application Of The United Nations Convention On Contracts For The International Sale Of Goods Uniformity Interpretation Principle In U.S., Yuqing Nie

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (hereinafter: CISG) plays an increasingly important role in international sale of goods. However, the CISG is not always correctly applied, especially one of its basic principles – the uniform interpretation principle stated in its Article 7(1), which is usually ignored or incorrectly applied in its contracting States.

The CISG requires high-level uniformity, which requires the CISG to be applied autonomously if there involves parties from two CISG contracting States and the contract governing the transaction has no clause specifying other law as the governing law. Additionally, the CISG …

Licenses And The Property/Contract Interface, Christina M. Mulligan

Indiana Law Journal

INTRODUCTION

I. THE ROLE OF FORMAL CATEGORIES

II. THE COMPOUND-PAUCITAL LICENSE

A. IDIOSYNCRASY AND INFORMATION ASYMMETRIES

B. REGULATING LICENSES

1. THE NOTICE STRATEGY

2. THE PROTECTION STRATEGY

III. RESTRAINTS ON ALIENATION AND USE

A. HARMS CAUSED BY RESTRAINTS ON ALIENATION AND USE

1. INCREASED INFORMATION COSTS

2.WASTE

B. LIMITING HARM WITH PROTECTIVE STANDARDIZATION

1. THE LICENSE V. SALE DISTINCTION IN PRACTICE

2.WHAT IS A DIGITAL SALE?

3. FAVORING SALES WITHOUT LOSING FLEXIBILITY

C. DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN IN REM AND IN PERSONAM LICENSE TERMS

IV. LICENSE REVOCATION

A. TIMING REVOCATION

B. BENEFITS AND CONCERNS

1.MANAGING SHARED RESOURCES VS. UPSET RELIANCE INTERESTS

2. …

Enforcing Corporate Social Responsibility Codes Under Private Law: On The Disciplining Power Of Legal Doctrine, Jan M. Smits

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

A central question in the debate on corporate social responsibility is to what extent CSR codes can be enforced among private parties. This contribution argues that this question is best answered by reference to the applicable doctrinal legal system. Such a doctrinal approach has recently regained importance in American scholarship, while it is still the prevailing method of legal analysis in Europe. Applying a doctrinal analysis of CSR codes allows for the possibility of private law enforcement, that is, enforcement by means of contract or tort, dependent on three different elements: the exact type of claim that is brought, the …

The Concurrent Liability In Contract And Tort Under U.S. And English Law: To What Extent Plaintiff Is Entitled To Recover For Damages Under Tort Claim?, Phutchaya Numngern

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Both U.S. and English courts has confronted with the concurrent situations mostly occurring in the cases where 1) the plaintiff asks for the recovery in tort claim despite the existence of contractual relationship or 2) the plaintiff asserts contract claim but the defendant contends that the issue at bar should be sound in tort rather than in contract. After studying all relevant cases and academic writings, this thesis found that both U.S. and English systems generally recognize concurrent tort claim as an elective right. The courts have attempted to provide the justified rationales either to allow the plaintiffs tort claim …

"I'M Just Some Guy": Positing And Leveraging Legal Subjects In Consumer Contracts And The Global Market, Tal Kastner

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article considers how legal frameworks shape the autonomous subject in a global economy. It makes salient the ways that different legal frameworks presume and enforce a particular subjectivity by positing certain behavioral expectations of various subjects. It does so through a focus on the underexplored rhetoric and implicit narratives of consumer contract law and transactional practice in the American and European regimes. By comparing the approach of the European Union to consumer contract, which posits the consumer as facing significant constraints on agency, to that in the United States, which elides functional limits of consumer knowledge and choice, this …

Collapsing Illusions: Standards For Setting Efficient Contract And Other Defaults, Steven J. Burton

Indiana Law Journal

In this Essay, Professor Burton analyzes and evaluates four commonly used standards for setting efficient default rules and standards. Based on two theoretical insights, he shows that three of them collapse upon analysis into the fourth, a Coasian standard that turns out to be a dead end. The theoretical upshot is that the Coase Theorem often is a good reason to use defaults rather than mandatory rules or standards. But neither the theorem nor reference to a transaction-costless world sustains particular defaults. To set an efficient default, the law should guide courts toward supplying terms that parties should have adopted …

College Football Coaches’ Pay And Contracts: Are They Overpaid And Unfairly Treated?􀀃, Randall Thomas, Lawrence Van Horn

Indiana Law Journal

College football coaches’ employment contracts and compensation garner public attention and scrutiny in much the same way as those of corporate CEOs. In both cases, the public perception is that they must be overpaid and pampered. Economic theory claims that for coaches and CEOs to be overpaid, they must be receiving compensation in excess of the value they create for their organizations. However, both receive pay-for-performance compensation, which structurally aligns their compensation with value creation. This means we need to examine the underlying structure of the contract that gives rise to the observed compensation to determine whether they are appropriately …

Good-Cause Statutes Revisited: An Empirical Assessment, Adi Ayal, Uri Benoliel

Indiana Law Journal

One of the most vital debates in franchise law focuses on whether state or federal law should adopt “good-cause statutes” (GCSs), which require franchisors to show good cause before terminating contractual relations with a franchisee. The traditional law-and-economics analysis suggests that GCSs are inefficient. This inefficiency argument is based upon one central hypothesis: GCSs increase franchisee free riding since they limit the franchisor’s ability to terminate the franchise contract easily. The free-riding hypothesis has been significantly influential in the development of franchise law, as is evident in state and federal statutory regimes. To date, the majority of states and the …

Why The State Cannot “Abolish Marriage”: A Partial Defense Of Legal Marriage, Gregg P. Strauss

Indiana Law Journal

Does a liberal state have a legitimate interest in defining the terms of intimate relationships? Recently, several scholars have answered this question with a no and concluded that the state should abolish marriage, along with all other categories of intimate status. While politically infeasible, these proposals offer a powerful thought experiment. In this Article, I use this thought experiment to argue that the law cannot avoid relying on intimate-status norms and has legitimate reasons to retain an intimate status like marriage.

The argument has three parts. The primary lesson of the thought experiment is that the state cannot abolish intimate …

Legislating Labors Of Love: Revisiting Commercial Surrogacy In New York, Deborah Machalow

Indiana Law Journal

After over twenty years of status quo, the New York Legislature has an opportunity to liberalize its surrogacy laws whether during this legislative session or the next. By adopting the proposals with the suggested changes, the Legislature would simultaneously bring the law into conformity with the desires of many New Yorkers and recognize important technological developments. The proposals are marked improvements on the present prohibitory regime; however, they are not perfect. The legislature should consider further protections for the parties to surrogacy arrangements and amend the proposals accordingly. The legislature’s renewed interest in the topic is refreshing; this interest should …

Enhancing The Effectiveness Of The Public Procurement System Of Iraq Through Reforming The Bid Protest Processes, Ali Ahmed Rahman

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the legal framework of the bid protest system in Iraq, which is designed to check illegalities and irregularities in awarding public contracts by contracting agencies. Several regional and international agreements emphasize the significance of bid protest processes for member states. However, the mere existence of bid protest forums is not sufficient to ensure their effectiveness. The vast majority of developing countries have bid protest mechanisms, but this does not mean that they are functioning as necessary. This work begins by assessing the theoretical controversies surrounding the issue of what works best, more discretion or more oversight, in …

Mothering For Money: Regulating Commercial Intimacy, Surrogacy, Adoption,, Pamela Laufer-Ukeles

Indiana Law Journal

Roundtable on Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology 2012

New Thinking On Commercial Surrogacy, Richard F. Storrow

Indiana Law Journal

Roundtable on Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology 2012

A Decade Of Registered And Unregistered Design Rights Decisions In The Uk: What Conclusions Can We Draw For The Future Of Both Types Of Rights?, Estelle Derclaye

IP Theory

No abstract provided.

The Expansion Of Trademark Rights In Europe, Irina Pak

IP Theory

No abstract provided.

Goodwill U: School Name Change & Trademark Law, Alexandra J. Roberts

IP Theory

No abstract provided.

The Granting Clause And Intellectual Property Rights Management In Open-Source Software Licensing, Vikrant N. Vasudeva

IP Theory

No abstract provided.

A Lesson On Some Limits Of Economic Analysis: Schwartz And Scott On Contract Interpretation, Steven J. Burton

Indiana Law Journal

Contract interpretation has been a hot topic of scholarly debate since 2003, when Professors Alan Schwartz of Yale and Robert E. Scott of Columbia published their provocative article, Contract Theory and the Limits of Contract Law, much of which develops an efficiency theory of contract interpretation. In 2010, they published a restatement of this theory and reply to critics, which has not yet drawn much commentary. This Article suggests that, even as restated, their theory offers an object lesson on some limits of economic analyses of the law. The Article assumes that their central argument is mathematically and economically impeccable. …