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Articles 1 - 30 of 38
Full-Text Articles in Law
Fee-Shifting Statutes And Compensation For Risk, Maureen S. Carroll
Fee-Shifting Statutes And Compensation For Risk, Maureen S. Carroll
Articles
A law firm that enters into a contingency arrangement provides the client with more than just its attorneys' labor. It also provides a form of financing, because the firm will be paid (if at all) only after the litigation ends; and insurance, because if the litigation results in a low recovery (or no recovery at all), the firm will absorb the direct and indirect costs of the litigation. Courts and markets routinely pay for these types of risk-bearing services through a range of mechanisms, including state fee shifting statutes, contingent percentage fees, common-fund awards, alternative fee arrangements, and third-party litigation …
Class Action Myopia, Maureen Carroll
Class Action Myopia, Maureen Carroll
Articles
Over the past two decades, courts and commentators have often treated the class action as though it were a monolith, limiting their analysis to the particular class form that joins together a large number of claims for monetary relief This Article argues that the myopic focus on the aggregated-damages class action has led to undertheorization of the other class-action subtypes, which serve far different purposes and have far different effects, and has allowed the ongoing backlash against the aggregated-damages class action to affect the other subtypes in an undifferentiated manner. The failure to confine this backlash to its intended target …
Contemporary Practice Of The United States Relating To International Law, Kristina Daugirdas, Julian Davis Mortenson
Contemporary Practice Of The United States Relating To International Law, Kristina Daugirdas, Julian Davis Mortenson
Articles
In this section: • United States and France Sign Agreement to Compensate Holocaust Victims • United States Conducts Naval Operation Within Twelve Nautical Miles of Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, Prompting Protests from China • United States Pursues Bilateral and Multilateral Initiatives in and Around the Arctic
What Does Tort Law Do? What Can It Do?, Scott Hershovitz
What Does Tort Law Do? What Can It Do?, Scott Hershovitz
Articles
It’s not hard to describe what tort law does. As a first approximation, we might say that tort empowers those who suffer certain sorts of injuries or invasions to seek remedies from those who brought about those injuries or invasions. The challenge is to explain why tort does that, or to explain what tort is trying to do when it does that. After all, it is not obvious that we should have an institution specially concerned with the injuries and invasions that count as torts.
Exclusion From Income Of Compensation For Services And Pooling Of Labor Occurring In A Noncommercial Setting, Douglas A. Kahn
Exclusion From Income Of Compensation For Services And Pooling Of Labor Occurring In A Noncommercial Setting, Douglas A. Kahn
Articles
When cash is received for services, it typically will constitute gross income to the recipient.' But what if the payments are made in a noncommercial setting such as the payment by a parent to a child for mowing the lawn or performing household chores? As discussed later in this Essay, there are reasons to conclude that such payments do not constitute income. The problem of how to treat receipts from a noncommercial activity frequently arises in the context of an exchange of services. A similar problem arises when services are provided by several persons pursuant to a pooling of labor …
Attorneys As Arbitrators, Adam C. Pritchard, Stephen J. Choi, Jill E. Fisch
Attorneys As Arbitrators, Adam C. Pritchard, Stephen J. Choi, Jill E. Fisch
Articles
We study the role of attorneys as arbitrators in securities arbitration. We find that arbitrators who also represent brokerage firms or brokers in other arbitrations award significantly less compensation to investor-claimants than do other arbitrators. We find no significant effect for attorney-arbitrators who represent investors or both investors and brokerage firms. The relation between representing brokerage firms and arbitration awards remains significant even when we control for political outlook. Arbitrators who donate money to Democratic political candidates award greater compensation than do arbitrators who donate to Republican can-didates. We also study the dynamics of panel interaction. We find that the …
Optimizing Private Antitrust Enforcement, Daniel A. Crane
Optimizing Private Antitrust Enforcement, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
Private litigation is the predominant means of antitrust enforcement in the United States. Other jurisdictions around the world are increasingly implementing private enforcement models. Private enforcement is usually justified on either compensation or deterrence grounds. While the choice between these two goals matters, private litigation is not very effective at advancing either one. Compensation fails because the true economic victims of most antitrust violations are usually downstream consumers who are too numerous and remote to locate and compensate. Deterrence is ineffective because the time lag between the planning of the violation and the legal judgment day is usually so long …
The Attack On Nonprofit Status: A Charitable Assessment, James R. Hines Jr., Jill R. Horwitz, Austin Nichols
The Attack On Nonprofit Status: A Charitable Assessment, James R. Hines Jr., Jill R. Horwitz, Austin Nichols
Articles
American nonprofit organizations receive favorable tax treatment, including tax exemptions and tax-deductibility of contributions, in return for their devotion to charitable purposes and restrictions not to distribute profits. Recent efforts to extend some or all of these tax benefits to for-profit companies making social investments, including the creation of the new hybrid nonprofit/for-profit company form known as the Low-Profit Limited Liability Company, threaten to undermine the vitality of the nonprofit sector and the integrity of the tax system. Reform advocates maintain that the ability to compensate executives based on performance and to distribute profits when attractive investment opportunities are scarce …
Will The Tax Man Cometh To Coach Rodriguez?, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
Will The Tax Man Cometh To Coach Rodriguez?, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
Articles
There has been much in the news recently about coaches of major college sports teams moving to a new school and incurring an obligation to make payment to their old school under a buyout provision in their contract. The most recent example is the highly publicized move of Richard Rodriguez from West Virginia University to the University of Michigan. Coach Rodriguez had a contract with his former employer that required him to pay $4 million dollars to West Virginia if he left for another coaching position. After a suit was filed, it was reported that the parties agreed that the …
The Proper Tax Treatment Of The Transfer Of A Compensatory Partnership Interest, Douglas A. Kahn
The Proper Tax Treatment Of The Transfer Of A Compensatory Partnership Interest, Douglas A. Kahn
Articles
If a person receives property as payment for services, whether for past or future services, the receipt typically constitutes gross income to the recipient. If a person performs services for a partnership or agrees to perform future services, and if the person receives a partnership interest as compensation for the past or future services, one might expect that receipt to cause the new partner to recognize gross income in an amount equal to the fair market value of the partnership interest. After all, if a corporation compensated someone for services rendered or to be rendered by transferring the corporation's own …
Tax Consequences When A New Employer Bears The Cost Of The Employee's Terminating A Prior Employment Relationship, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
Tax Consequences When A New Employer Bears The Cost Of The Employee's Terminating A Prior Employment Relationship, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
Articles
The next few months will be busy ones for moving companies that have NCAA basketball coaches as customers. In the past few months, several men's college basketball coaches have accepted jobs at different schools. Several of those coaches, who were still under contract at their former institution, had buy out provisions that allowed them to terminate their relationship for a set price. John Beilein is a prominent example of this since his buy out price was so high. Last season, Beilein was the head basketball coach at West Virginia University where he was under contract with the school until 2012. …
The Investor Compensation Fund, Alicia J. Davis
The Investor Compensation Fund, Alicia J. Davis
Articles
The prevailing view among securities regulation scholars is that compensating victims of secondary market securities fraud is inefficient. As the theory goes, diversified investors are as likely to be on the gaining side of a transaction tainted by fraud as the losing side. Therefore, such investors should have no expected net losses from fraud because their expected losses will be matched by expected gains. This Article argues that this view is flawed; even diversified investors can suffer substantial losses from fraud, presenting a compelling case for compensation. The interest in compensation, however, should be advanced by better means than are …
Hedonic Damages, Hedonic Adaptation, And Disability, Samuel R. Bagenstos, Margo Schlanger
Hedonic Damages, Hedonic Adaptation, And Disability, Samuel R. Bagenstos, Margo Schlanger
Articles
A number of states recognize hedonic damages as a separate category of recovery in tort and tort-like actions. Others consider lost enjoyment of life as an aspect of what are sometimes termed "disability" damages-damages for physical or mental impairment. Many other states permit juries to take account of lost enjoyment of life in setting compensation for pain and suffering or other forms of general damages. In all these jurisdictions, disability has loomed large. And the (explicit or implicit) view of disability is often one of tragic dependency and helplessness. As we show in Part I below, lawyers seeking hedonic damages …
Public Ruses, James E. Krier, Christopher Serkin
Public Ruses, James E. Krier, Christopher Serkin
Articles
The public use requirement of eminent domain law may be working its way back into the United States Constitution. To be sure, the words "public use" appear in the document-and in many state constitutions as well, but the federal provision applies to the states in any event-as one of the Fifth Amendment's limitations on the government's inherent power to take private property against the will of its owners. (The other limitation is that "just compensation" must be paid, of which more later.) Any taking of private property, the text suggests, must be for public use. Those words, however, have amounted …
What Did Punitive Damages Do? Why Misunderstanding The History Of Punitive Damages Matters Today, Anthony J. Sebok
What Did Punitive Damages Do? Why Misunderstanding The History Of Punitive Damages Matters Today, Anthony J. Sebok
Articles
In 2001 the Supreme Court, in Cooper Industries, Inc. v. Leatherman Tool Group, Inc. suggested that, although modern punitive damages punish, in earlier times they almost exclusively compensated for noneconomic damages that were ignored by a less progressive legal system. This article demonstrates that the historical foundation upon which the Supreme Court bases its argument is groundless. In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries punitive damages served a number of functions, but none of them were to provide the noneconomic damages identified by the court. Instead, as the article shows, the sort of injuries for which punitive damages were once demanded …
A Taxing Settlement, Hanoch Dagan, James J. White
A Taxing Settlement, Hanoch Dagan, James J. White
Articles
The following essay is based on the talk "Government, Citizens, and Injurious Industries: A Case Study of the Tobacco Litigation," delivered by Hanoch Dagan last May to the Detroit Chapter of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, and on the article "Governments, Citizens, and Injurious Industries," by Dagan and James J. White, '62, which appeared in 75.2 New York University Law Review 254-428 (May 2000). The authors hold conflicting view on the underlying issue of this topic: tobacco company product liability. Professor Dagan holds the position that tobacco companies are liable for harm done by their products; Professor …
The Genie And The Bottle: Collateral Sources Under The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Kenneth S. Abraham, Kyle D. Logue
The Genie And The Bottle: Collateral Sources Under The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Kenneth S. Abraham, Kyle D. Logue
Articles
The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 (the Fund) was part of legislation enacted just eleven days after the terrorist attacks of September 11th in the wake of extraordinary national loss. It is possible, therefore, that the Fund will always be considered an urgent and unique response to the unprecedented events of September 11th. On that view, the character of the Fund will have little longterm policy significance. It is equally possible, however, that the enactment of the Fund will prove to be a seminal moment in the history of tort and compensation law. The Fund adopts a new …
Governments, Citizens, And Injurious Industries, Hanoch Dagan, James J. White
Governments, Citizens, And Injurious Industries, Hanoch Dagan, James J. White
Articles
In this Article, Professors Hanoch Dagan and James White study the most recent challenge raised by mass torts litigation: the interference of governments with the bilateral relationship between citizens and injurious industries. Using the tobacco settlement as their case study, Dagan and White explore the important benefits and the grave dangers of recognizing governments' entitlement to reimbursement for costs they have incurred in preventing or ameliorating their citizens' injuries. They further demonstrate that the current law can help capture these benefits and guard against the entailing risks, showing how subrogation law can serve as the legal foundation of the governments' …
The Secrecy Interest In Contract Law, Omri Ben-Shahar, Lisa Bernstein
The Secrecy Interest In Contract Law, Omri Ben-Shahar, Lisa Bernstein
Articles
A long and distinguished line of law-and-economics articles has established that in many circumstances fully compensatory expectation damages are a desirable remedy for breach of contract because they induce both efficient performance and efficient breach. The expectation measure, which seeks to put the breached-against party in the position she would have been in had the contract been performed, has, therefore, rightly been chosen as the dominant contract default rule. It does a far better job of regulating breach-or-perform incentives than its leading competitors-the restitution measure, the reliance measure, and specific performance. This Essay does not directly take issue with the …
Uncoupling The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Uncoupling The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Articles
The law of takings couples together matters that should be treated independently. The conventional view, shared by courts and commentators alike, has been that any takings case can be resolved in one of two ways: either there is a taking and compensation is due, or there is no taking and no compensation is due. These results are fine as long as one holding or the other serves the two central concerns of the Takings Clause - eficiency and justice. But a problem arises when the two purposes behind the law of takings come into cordhct, as they readily might. It …
Making Something Out Of Nothing: The Law Of Takings And Phillips V. Washington Legal Foundation, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Making Something Out Of Nothing: The Law Of Takings And Phillips V. Washington Legal Foundation, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Articles
Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation held that interest on principal amounts deposited into IOLTA accounts is the property of the various clients who handed over the money but expressed no view as to whether the Texas IOLTA program worked a taking, or, if it did, whether any compensation was due. The debates among the justices about the meaning of private property, argued in terms of contextual and conceptual severance, are unlikely to prove fruitful. We elaborate a better approach in terms of the underlying purposes of just compensation. We conclude that efficiency and justice are best served by uncoupling matters …
The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller
The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller
Articles
If your house and fields are worth more separately, divide them; if you want to leave a ring to your child now and grandchild later, split the ownership in a trust. The American law of property encourages owners to subdivide resources freely. Hidden within the law, however, is a boundary principle that limits the right to subdivide private property into wasteful fragments. While people often create wealth when they break up and recombine property in novel ways, owners may make mistakes, or their self-interest may clash with social welfare. Property law responds with diverse doctrines that prevent and abolish excessive …
The Constitutionality Of Taxing Compensatory Damages For Mental Distress When There Was No Accompanying Physical Injury, Douglas A. Kahn
The Constitutionality Of Taxing Compensatory Damages For Mental Distress When There Was No Accompanying Physical Injury, Douglas A. Kahn
Articles
Since 1919, statutory tax law has excluded from gross income compensatory damages received on account of a personal injury or sickness.1 The current version of that exclusion is set forth in section 104 (a) (2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.2 The construction of that exclusion, both by the courts and by the Commissioner, underwent significant alterations over the 80-year period that the provision has existed.3 The statute itself was amended several times, most recently in 1996.4 It is the 1996 amendment that has raised a constitutional issue concerning the validity of a portion of the statute.5
Deterrence And Distribution In The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Deterrence And Distribution In The Law Of Takings, Michael A. Heller, James E. Krier
Articles
Supreme Court decisions over the last three-quarters of a century have turned the words of the Takings Clause into a secret code that only a momentary majority of the Court is able to understand. The Justices faithfully moor their opinions to the particular terms of the Fifth Amendment, but only by stretching the text beyond recognition. A better approach is to consider the purposes of the Takings Clause, efficiency and justice, and go anew from there. Such a method reveals that in some cases there are good reasons to require payment by the government when it regulates property, but not …
Taxation Of Damages After Schleier - Where Are We And Where Do We Go From Here?, Douglas A. Kahn
Taxation Of Damages After Schleier - Where Are We And Where Do We Go From Here?, Douglas A. Kahn
Articles
This article will examine the reasoning of the Schleier decision and speculate as to how taxation of pre-1996 damages will likely apply in light of Schleier. First, the article will set forth a very brief history of the judicial and administrative constructions of the statutory exclusion, and explore tax policy justifications for providing an exclusion from gross income for certain damages. These latter two items (set forth in Parts II and III of this article) are areas that have been extensively addressed previously by several commentators, including the author of this article.' The reason for exploring tax policy issues is …
Compensatory And Punitive Damages For A Personal Injury: To Tax Or Not To Tax, Douglas A. Kahn
Compensatory And Punitive Damages For A Personal Injury: To Tax Or Not To Tax, Douglas A. Kahn
Articles
Since the adoption in 1919 of the Revenue Act of 1918, damages received on account of personal injuries or sickness have been excluded by statute from gross income.1 This exclusion, which does not apply to reimbursements for medical expenses for which the taxpayer was previously allowed a tax deduction,2 is presently set forth in section 104(a)(2). One might expect that a provision having recently attained the ripe age of 75 years without change in its basic language would have a settled meaning. However, recent litigation under section 104(a)(2) bristles with unsettled issues. Does the exclusion apply to punitive damages? To …
Making Uncle Sam Pay: A Review Of Equal Access To Justice Act Cases In The Sixth Circuit, 1983-1987, Martin Geer, Paul D. Reingold
Making Uncle Sam Pay: A Review Of Equal Access To Justice Act Cases In The Sixth Circuit, 1983-1987, Martin Geer, Paul D. Reingold
Articles
Despite the recent admonition of the Supreme Court that a "request for attorneys' fees should not result in a second major litigation,"12 the courts have been frequently called on to interpret the often ambiguous language of the EAJA. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has not been spared this difficult chore. While the 1985 amendments have clarified some provisions of the Act and affected some major decisions in the Sixth Circuit, the recent changes have also left other previously settled areas in a state of flux. This article will review the Sixth Circuit's EAJA decisions from 1983-1987, …
Full Faith And Credit, More Or Less, To Judgments: Doubts About Thomas V. Washington Gas Light Co., Stewart E. Sterk
Full Faith And Credit, More Or Less, To Judgments: Doubts About Thomas V. Washington Gas Light Co., Stewart E. Sterk
Articles
Workmen's compensation awards, decrees of administrative tribunals rather than courts, present the question of how far the mandate of the full faith and credit clause should reach and whether the clause should bar a claimant from pursuing supplemental compensation in a second state. Recently, in Thomas v. Washington Gas Light Co., the Supreme Court decided that full faith and credit should not prevent a claimant from obtaining supplemental compensation. Professor Sterk criticizes the Court's analysis, demonstrating the Thomas Court's neglect of the federal interests that the clause should protect. After examining the clause and its policy underpinnings, Professor Sterk …
Soviet Tort Law: The New Principles Annotated, Whitmore Gray
Soviet Tort Law: The New Principles Annotated, Whitmore Gray
Articles
In 1961, the federal legislature, the USSR Supreme Soviet, finally adopted a skeleton code of fundamental principles of civil law.10 This recodification, which incorporates 40 years of case law and doctrinal development as well as some major innovations, will be the basis for individual civil codes to be adopted in each of the 15 union republics. While there may be some slight modifications, and certainly some variety in the degree of additional detail included in the individual codes by each republic,11 these Principles present already a fairly comprehensive picture of the shape of the future law. They are about as …
Acquirement Of Title By A Willful Trespasser And Compensation For The Trespassee, Joseph H. Drake
Acquirement Of Title By A Willful Trespasser And Compensation For The Trespassee, Joseph H. Drake
Articles
The interaction of the basic maxim of substantive law, that no man may be deprived of his property without his consent, and the correlative maxim of adjective law, that the courts will give exact compensation for property taken or destroyed, together with the more or less mechanical rules of damages depending upon the form of action used, have in their outcome gone far toward justifying the somewhat grandiloquent utterance of our legal forbears of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that the "Common Law is the perfection of human wisdom." The final stage in this development is shown in the late …